The situation between Israel and the international community remains tense because of the attack against the city of thousands of Palestinians, directed by the Israelis.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel has shown Egypt a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah, a city south of Gaza, home to thousands of Palestinians (about a million), before launching a ground operation to attack the area.
Amid international concern over plans by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to capture the city of Rafah, Israel has drawn up a plan to evacuate civilians on Palestine's Mediterranean coast: 15 sites with 25,000 tents each in the Al Mawasi area.
As the Israelis have already announced, Rafah, which borders Gaza and Egypt, is the target of the IDF's next attack. The United States and the international community warned of the humanitarian dangers of the decision – after seeing Israeli troops kill scores of Palestinians already, which could reach 30,000 in the coming days.
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “safe passage” for civilians leaving Rafah, without specifying where the large crowds would go. On the other hand, the international community fears that the plan is to expel the refugees to Egypt and then prevent them from returning to their country.
According to the Israeli press, the UN for Palestinian refugees Juliet Douma, spokeswoman for the agency (UNRWA), said on Tuesday that she had not been informed of any Israeli evacuation plan and that the organization was not part of it. Relations between Israel and the UN – which have never been exactly smooth – demonstrate that this deliberate 'absence' is a kind of ground zero.
“Because there is nowhere safe in the entire Gaza Strip, where are people going to evacuate? The north is devastated, full of unexploded ordnance, and it is practically uninhabitable,” he said. “Any further escalation of the war is absolutely apocalyptic.”
United Nations Secretary-General Douma said the same: The organization, led by Antonio Guterres, “will not be a part” of any forced displacement of Palestinians currently living in Rafah, a spokesman for the organization said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Beierbach, who will visit Israel this Wednesday, expressed concern about the imminent attack, saying the Hebrew state has the right to defend itself against terrorism, but this does not mean expelling people. Analysts, however, know that the visit will certainly not help confront Benjamin Netanyahu's government. As Ambassador Seixas da Costa told JE, “out of a pang of conscience because of the Second World War, Germany did nothing against the will of the Israeli government”.
The foreign ministers of Canada and the United Kingdom — two countries that until recently supported Israel unconditionally, but have recently shown some reservations — also expressed concern about the planned Rafah operation.
This Tuesday, President Joe Biden's national security spokesman, John Kirby, insisted that “the United States never said it could not enter Rafah to drive out Hamas.” Hamas continues to pose a threat to the Israeli people. The Israelis and the IDF will continue operations against his leadership and infrastructure.
“What we have said is that we do not believe it is advisable to enter Rafah without an adequate, implementable, effective and credible plan for the protection of the more than one million Palestinians who have taken refuge in Rafah. They have left the north, certainly to the south of Khan Younis and are trying to get out of the fighting areas. So there is an obligation to ensure that they are protected. Israel has.
Meanwhile, in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, senior Israeli officials continue to negotiate a framework for the release of the hostages – one that would include a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”