The Israeli army is preparing to invade the city of Rafah and preparing a humanitarian zone that can accommodate a million displaced people
According to Israeli Kann Reshet Bet radio station, affiliated with the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, reported on Monday that Israel will significantly expand the so-called “humanitarian zone” in the Gaza Strip, as part of Israel’s preparations for a military operation in Rafah.
According to the radio, this area will be much larger than the one in the al Mawasi area in the south, along the coast and up to the outskirts of Nuseirat, in the middle of the Gaza Strip, and can accommodate a million Palestinians who could be forced by the genocidal war to flee from Rafah.
According to the Israeli account, five field hospitals were established in the area in addition to the existing hospitals there.
The nature of the military operation that the Israeli army intends to carry out in Rafah hasn’t yet become clear, because it has effectively begun a war of extermination and displacement in Rafah, through its daily bombing of the area and committing massacres there, such as the bombing of two houses, Sunday, and the martyrdom of at least 24 Palestinians, including 16 children and six women.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to deliver more painful blows to Hamas, adding, “This is what will happen soon… During the next few days, we will intensify military and political pressure on Hamas, as it’s the only way to liberate our kidnappers and achieve our victory”.
For its part, Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday that Israel has been taking initial steps in the last week, on the eve of a possible military invasion of Rafah, after more than two months of public threats, adding that the scale of the military operation there isn’t yet clear.
In recent days, the Israeli army has recruited two reserve brigades to replace the forces present at the corridor that divides the Gaza Strip into the south and the north, and thus demobilized the two regular brigades: the Nahel Brigade and the 401st Armored Brigade, to prepare them to invade Rafah.
Haaretz newspaper continued that the preparations being made by the Egyptian side in the border area with the Gaza Strip, in addition to a series of leaks from Cairo, indicate the Egyptians’ expectations of the start of the military operation in Rafah soon.
On April 18, the ABC News website, quoting an Israeli source, said that Israel had made significant progress in preparations to evacuate about a million civilians from Rafah, which was crowded with displaced persons, before the ground attack on the city located in the southern Gaza Strip, indicating that preparations had been continuing for more than a month ago, it included several things, including repairing water and sewage pipes and erecting thousands of tents.
