Israeli military calls for Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate

Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli attack on Rafah, southern Gaza on Sunday. Israel’s military has urged the evacuation of citizens from some eastern areas of the city. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Israel’s military has issued a call for residents and displaced people to evacuate eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah and head to an “expanded humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was making the call to evacuate through “announcements, text messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic”. It added: “This matter will progress in a gradual manner according to ongoing situation assessments that will take place all the time.”

The IDF said the operation was of “limited scope” and estimated it would need to move about 100,000 people. There was no confirmation from inside Rafah of the situation on the ground.

In the statement the IDF said it was expanding a humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi, to the north of Rafah’s city centre, which includes field hospitals and tents and was increasing supplies of food and water.

“The IDF will continue to work to realise the goals of the war, including the dismantling of Hamas and the repatriation of all the hostages,” it said in the statement.

The news comes a day after Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that if a ceasefire deal was not reached, Israel would launch “in the very near future” an often-threatened offensive into Rafah, a reported Hamas stronghold where about a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza have sought shelter.

Israel has been warning for months it plans to send troops into Rafah, the southern city bordering Egypt.

The evacuation call follows claims by the IDF that 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah towards the area of the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, killing three soldiers. The crossing was closed soon after, but other crossings remained open. The armed wing of Hamas said it fired rockets at an Israeli army base next to the crossing, but did not confirm where it fired them from

A reprisal strike on a house in Rafah reportedly killed at least three Palestinians.

In a televised address on Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu once more rejected Hamas’s demands for a definitive end to the war in Gaza, saying that any permanent ceasefire would allow the group to remain in power and pose a continuing threat to Israel.

Speaking a day after thousands of people again rallied in Tel Aviv demanding a deal to free the remaining Israeli captives, Netanyahu also said that his government had “been working around the clock to formulate an agreement that would return our hostages”.

The statements by Netanyahu and Gallant may dash recent hopes that Hamas and Israel are close to a deal to bring about an initial 40-day pause to hostilities and the release of dozens of hostages.

A Hamas delegation which had arrived in Cairo on Saturday announced late on Sunday it was leaving to consult with its leadership. There has been no sign yet of a definitive response from the group to new terms proposed by mediators and accepted by Israel last week. Israel has yet to send a delegation to Cairo.

In a move unlikely to help the talks, Netanyahu’s cabinet decided on Sunday to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel for as long as the war in Gaza continues, claiming the Qatari television network threatens national security.

Al Jazeera rejected the accusation as a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk.