Displaced Gazans Brace for Possible Ground Assault on Border Town

TEL AVIV—Displaced civilians in the Gaza Strip braced for a possible Israeli ground operation in Rafah—the last unoccupied stretch of the enclave—with some searching in vain for a safe place to flee.

Meanwhile, Israeli military operations continued in Gaza’s largest functioning hospital—in the southern city of Khan Younis—the Israel military said Saturday, arresting over a 100 people as part of its search for Hamas militants it says are hiding there.

Expectations are rising that the Israeli military will soon launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, a southern Gaza town bordering Egypt. In the past week, the Israeli air force has intensified its airstrikes on the town, which it has described as the last bastion for the militant group.

More than 1.3 million civilians, or over half of Gaza’s population, have fled fighting elsewhere and crowded into Rafah, which normally has about 300,000 residents.

Israel has signaled its intention to enter Rafah as part of its goal of eradicating Hamas, which is designated by the U.S. as a terror organization. Israel’s offensive in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians.

The offensive has resulted in nearly 29,000 deaths in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza. The figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The U.S. and European countries worry a ground offensive on Rafah would cause mass casualties, squeeze already scarce aid and leave displaced Palestinians with nowhere to go. President Biden said Friday he expected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on sending Israeli troops into Rafah.

Palestinians who had moved Rafah to flee fighting elsewhere have few options.

“There is no space anymore,” said Lisa Macheiner, the Gaza project coordinator at Doctors Without Borders in an audio message Saturday. “We do see people start to move…to get to a safer place. ‘Where is it safe? Where should we go?’ There is no answer to that,” she said.

Balsam Jabril, 36, moved to Rafah about a month ago after Israeli authorities told residents in the north to move south. She had already left her home in Gaza City for Khan Younis.

Then, early Monday, she woke up to heavy bombing and armed clashes near the tent where she was sheltering with her four children. Israel forces were conducting a rescue operation that freed two hostages in Rafah.

Fearing a ground invasion on the town, Jabril took a bus with her children for Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza not knowing where else to go. But airstrikes were also frequent there.

“You never know what the right decision is, because you don’t know who will be the target of the next rocket,” she said. Unlike in Rafah, where humanitarian aid is still present, staples like potatoes and rice are almost out of reach in Deir Al-Balah. “I had to choose diapers over food,” she said.

Hanan Abdulkarim, 36, another evacuee sheltering in Rafah, is considering leaving, but doesn’t know if her home in Khan Younis is still standing. Other options, such as the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, seem equally unsafe.

“It’s a terrible situation to be in: waiting for our next round of evacuation to the unknown,” she said.

Netanyahu said Monday Israel is working out a detailed plan to evacuate civilians sheltering in Rafah. The Israeli Defense Ministry said Saturday it had not yet finalized the plan.

Analysts say Israel is struggling to finish it.

“There is no solution of where to turn to” said Michael Milshtein, a former head of Palestinian affairs for Israeli military intelligence. Israel’s designated humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi is full, he said. Israeli leaders would also face a backlash at home if they allowed Palestinians to return to northern Gaza before securing the return of Israelis who were evacuated from southern Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.

Israel might ultimately pursue a piecemeal civilian evacuation strategy, said Avi Jager, a researcher at the Israel-based International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

“The Rafah invasion plans involve strategic prioritization, not targeting all neighborhoods at once,” he said, potentially enabling the military to shift civilians within the city.

Egypt, meanwhile, has started building an eight-square-mile walled enclosure on its border with Gaza in case Israel’s ground offensive forces Palestinians toward the border. Egypt has long resisted any efforts to allow Palestinians out of Gaza for fear they could become permanent refugees. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday that Israel had no plans to push Palestinians out of Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said Saturday it was continuing operations inside Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, the largest medical facility still functioning in Gaza. Since the raids started Thursday, the Israeli military said it had arrested a hundred “individuals suspected of terrorist activity” and seized weapons, including explosive devices, grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilian infrastructure to hide soldiers and weapons.

But the ministry of health in Gaza said the detained people were medical staff. It said Friday that five intensive-care patients had died due to power outages and a lack of oxygen supply caused by the attack.

Write to Benoit Faucon at [email protected]