The Israeli army has unveiled a plan to “evacuate” civilians from “war zones” in the Gaza Strip, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday, still determined to launch a military offensive on the overpopulated city of Rafah, AFP reported.

The army “presented to the military cabinet a plan for the evacuation of the population from the war zones in the Gaza Strip, as well as a plan for future operations,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a brief statement, without providing details, the News noted. ro.

The announcement comes ahead of an expected Israeli offensive on Rafah, a city in southern Palestinian territory where the UN says nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are displaced, live in extremely dangerous conditions.

Despite repeated international warnings, Netanyahu wants to launch a ground operation against the city, which is on the closed border with Egypt and which he describes as the “last bastion” of the Islamist movement Hamas.

The offensive will be “postponed” only if an armistice agreement is reached, he said on CBS on Sunday.

According to him, after launching this operation, Israel will be “several weeks” away from “total victory” over Hamas.

As truce talks resumed in Qatar, fresh artillery fire hit Rafah on Sunday, and fighting devastated the ruined town of Khan Younes a few kilometers to the north.

Since the start of the war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip has faced a major humanitarian disaster, with 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, at risk of “hunger on the table.” “, reports the UN.

On Sunday, according to an AFP correspondent, hundreds of people driven by hunger fled from the north of the Gaza Strip, where, according to the UN, 300,000 residents are at risk of starvation.

God is our only hope

International aid coming from Egypt through Rafah must get a green light from Israel, and reaching the north is almost impossible due to destruction and fighting.

In recent days, Palestinians in Gaza have told AFP they were forced to eat leaves and fodder and even slaughter pack animals for sustenance.

“Many people will die in the next ten days. They will die of hunger, not because of the bombing,” resident Marwan Avadieh said.

“The killing of our people by starvation is a genocide that threatens the entire negotiation process,” a Hamas official in northern Gaza told AFP.

Famine can still be “avoided” in Gaza if Israel allows humanitarian organizations to deliver “significant aid”, Philip Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN’s Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA), said on Sunday.

According to a count compiled by AFP based on official Israeli figures, the war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas commandos who infiltrated from Gaza, killing at least 1,160 people, mostly civilians.

During the attack, about 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held there, 31 of whom are believed to be dead.

In response, Israel promised to eliminate Hamas, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007 and which it, the US and the EU consider a terrorist organization.

According to the Hamas Health Ministry, the Israeli offensive has killed 29,692 people in Gaza since October 7, the vast majority of them civilians.

Common ground

Many voices, including the US, Israel’s main ally, and the UN are concerned about the fate of Rafah’s population in the event of a ground offensive.

“There is room for civilians to go north of Rafah, to the areas where we ended the fighting,” Netanyahu told CBS.

At the same time, the mediating countries are trying to reach a compromise on both sides with the goal of a truce.

According to the AlQahera News channel, close to the Egyptian intelligence services, representatives of Egypt, Qatar and the United States, as well as representatives of Israel and Hamas, resumed negotiations in Doha on Sunday, which “will be followed by meetings in Cairo.”

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said a recent meeting in Paris between representatives of Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar found “common ground” on the “outlines” of a possible deal to release the hostages and an “interim arrangement”. cease-fire”.

“There should be indirect talks between Qatar, Egypt and Hamas because eventually they will have to agree to release the hostages. This work continues,” he added to CNN.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is expected to visit Paris on Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss ongoing talks with French President Emmanuel Macron.

According to a Hamas source, the talks relate to the first phase of a plan drawn up by mediators in January, which calls for a six-week truce combined with the release of Palestinian hostages and prisoners held by Israel, as well as the entry of large amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But in order to conclude the agreement, Israel requires the release of all hostages and warns that a pause in the fighting does not mean the end of the war.

For its part, Hamas is demanding a full ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the lifting of the blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, and a safe haven for the hundreds of thousands of civilians left behind by the war.