Israel’s much-anticipated full-scale assault on Rafah appears imminent as in the latest development Israeli armed forces have begun evacuating Palestinian civilians from the southern Gaza city.the Israel Defense Forces announced.

According to the army announcement, civilians are being asked to move to an expanded humanitarian zone in Al-Mawashi and Khan-Younis areas.

The talks on the proposal to declare a ceasefire, accompanied by the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, in theory at least will continue today, after seven months of war in the Palestinian enclave, where three Israeli soldiers and then sixteen Palestinians, members of two families, were killed last Sunday night.

However, the radio of the Israeli army broadcast early this morning that “began” an operation to remove civilians from Rafaat the southern end of the Gaza Strip.

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The army said a short time later that it was “encouraging” residents in eastern Rafah to move to an “expanded” IDP reception area.

Israel’s armed forces told AFP yesterday that three of its members were killed and 12 others wounded when rockets were fired by Hamas’ military arm at of the sector of Kerem Shalom, of the main outpost from which humanitarian aid enters the Gaza Strip from Israel.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, after which Israel closed the crossing.

A few hours later, at least 16 people, members of two families, were killed in Israeli shelling in Rafah and its suburbs, sources close to a rescue team and a hospital said.

The head of the US intelligence agency William Burns and the Hamas delegation were expected in Qatar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that his government cannot “accept” the conditions set by the Palestinian Islamist movement. Hamas is demanding a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entire enclave before a deal is struck.

Benjamin Netanyahu never stopped harping on his determination to order an attack on Rafa, “with or without” a ceasefire agreement.

“I tell the leaders of the whole world that no pressure, no decision by an international institution will prevent Israel from defending itself,” he said during a Holocaust memorial ceremony in Jerusalem.

“If Israel must be left alone, it will be left alone,” the Israeli prime minister insisted, while denouncing the “terrible volcano of anti-Semitism” around the world.

He also announced his government’s decision to close the office in Israel of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television network, whose signal has already been cut on his country’s territory.

Al Jazeera, which devotes much of its programming to covering the war in the Gaza Strip, denounced the “criminal” decision.

“Urgent” meeting

Qatar-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniya had already accused Mr Netanyahu of “sabotaging the mediators’ efforts” due to “personal calculations” during talks in Cairo, absent Israel.

The negotiated proposal by the mediators (Egypt, Qatar, USA), submitted to Hamas in late April, provides for a 40-day ceasefire, the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza and in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

A Hamas official reiterated yesterday that the movement will “under no circumstances accept an agreement that does not explicitly provide for the end of the war.”

Her delegation, which left for Doha on Sunday night for consultations, was in theory due to return to Egypt on Tuesday.

The CIA director, who was in Cairo, also left for Qatar, said an AFP source briefed on the matter.

In the “lack of progress” in negotiations in Cairo, Mr Bers was expected to hold an “urgent meeting” with the emirate’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdelrahman al-Thani, to discuss ways to “get the talks back on track”, the source added.

Pressure from hostage families

The war broke out on October 7, when members of Hamas’ military wing launched an unprecedented raid on southern parts of the Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally by AFP based on official Israeli data.

Another 250-plus people were kidnapped and 128 of them are believed to be still being held hostage in the Gaza Strip, but 35 are believed to be dead, according to Israeli sources.

Yesterday Sunday, a collective of hostage families called, once again, to accept an agreement that would allow the release of at least some of their own.

“History will not forgive you if you miss this opportunity,” the text emphasizes.

Israel’s large-scale military operations, which vowed to wipe out Hamas after the October 7 attack, have so far claimed the lives of at least 34,683 people, most of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s health ministry. The Ministry of Health spoke yesterday Sunday of 29 deaths in 24 hours.

Gaza City (north) was bombed, as were the central and southern parts of the area, especially Rafah and neighboring Khan Yunis.

“Yesterday at this time we were optimistic, we were waiting for a ceasefire to be announced. Today, we are shaking,” said Najat Saat, a 59-year-old who lives in Rafah.

For the “final victory” and the release of the hostages, Benjamin Netanyahu keeps saying that he will order a ground attack on Rafah, where according to him the last battalions of the military arm of Hamas are located.

The city, on the closed border with Egypt, has become a refuge for over a million civilians, who fled other areas of the enclave to escape the war. According to the World Health Organization, 1.2 million Palestinians remain there, in other words half the population of the Gaza Strip.

“Real Famine”

Many capitals, including Washington, and humanitarian organizations fear heavy civilian casualties in the event of a ground attack by the Israeli armed forces on it.

Rafah is the main gateway for humanitarian aid arriving by land, via Egypt, after being subjected to very strict controls by the Israeli authorities, who keep the Palestinian enclave under siege, and if a ground attack is launched there, it will succeed “brutally a blow to humanitarian operations throughout the Gaza Strip,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned.

The director of the World Food Program (WFP), Cindy McCain, emphasized in an interview she granted to NBC and broadcast yesterday that the Gaza Strip is suffering from a “real famine”, which is spreading from it to the south.

Meanwhile, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, relations between the Israeli government and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees are at a nadir after the Israeli side claimed that around a dozen of its employees in the Gaza Strip participated in the October 7 attack and identified it with the Hamas.

The commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philip Lazzarini, complained yesterday that the Israeli authorities forbade him, for the second time in a week, to enter the Gaza Strip.