Israel’s military has proposed a plan for evacuating civilians from “areas of fighting” in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced yesterday, after he said a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory’s southern city Rafah was necessary.
Foreign governments and aid organizations have repeatedly expressed fears that an invasion of Rafah would inflict mass civilian casualties. More than 1.4 million Palestinians — most of them displaced from elsewhere — have converged on the last Gazan city untouched by Israel’s ground troops.
It is also the entry point for desperately needed aid, brought in via neighboring Egypt.
Photo: AFP
Israel’s military “presented the War Cabinet with a plan for evacuating the population from areas of fighting in the Gaza Strip, and with the upcoming operational plan,” a statement from Netayahu’s office said yesterday.
The statement did not give any details about how or where the civilians would be moved.
The announcement came after Egyptian, Qatari and US “experts” met in Doha for talks also attended by Israeli and Hamas representatives, Egyptian media reported, the latest effort to secure a truce before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Israel’s ally the US said ongoing mediation efforts produced “an understanding” toward a ceasefire and hostage release, while a Hamas source said the group insisted on the withdrawal of Israeli forces, but Netanyahu — who has dismissed the withdrawal demand as “delusional” — said a ground invasion of Rafah would put Israel within weeks of “total victory” over Hamas, whose attack on Oct. 7 last year triggered the war.
“If we have a [truce] deal, it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen,” Netanyahu said of the ground invasion in an interview with CBS on Sunday. “It has to be done because total victory is our goal and total victory is within reach — not months away, weeks away, once we begin the operation.”
Amid a spiraling humanitarian crisis, the main UN aid agency for Palestinians urged political action to avert famine in Gaza.
Dire food shortages in northern Gaza are “a man-made disaster” that can be mitigated, said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “Famine can still be avoided through genuine political will to grant access and protection to meaningful assistance.”
The UN has said it faces restrictions, particularly on aid deliveries to northern Gaza.
Nearly five months into the war, desperate families in Gaza’s north have been forced to scavenge for something to eat.
“We have no food or drink for ourselves or our children,” Omar al-Kahlout said as he waited near Gaza City for aid trucks to arrive.
“We are trapped in the north and there is no aid reaching us — the situation is extremely difficult,” he said.
Mediators have voiced hope that a temporary truce and a hostage-prisoner exchange can be secured before the start of Ramadan on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS