Extract from ABC News
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate the population of Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza town.
Mr Netanyahu made the announcement on Friday following international criticism of Israel's plan to invade the crowded town on Egypt's border.
Israel says Rafah is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and it needs to send in troops to complete its war plan against the Islamic militant group.
But an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians have crammed into the town after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
Doctors and aid workers in Rafah are struggling to supply even basic aid and stop the spread of disease.
"No war can be allowed in a gigantic refugee camp," said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warning of a "bloodbath" if Israeli operations were expanded there.
Mr Netanyahu said a "massive operation" was needed in Rafah.
He said he asked security officials to present a "double plan" that would include the evacuation of civilians and a military operation to "collapse" remaining Hamas militant units.
"It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war without eliminating Hamas, and by leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah. On the contrary, it is clear that intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians evacuate the areas of combat," Mr Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"Therefore, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] and the security establishment to submit to the Cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions."
The office of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the plan aimed to drive Palestinians from their land.
The office of Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority exerts partial self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said it held both the Israeli government and the US administration responsible for the plan's repercussions.
The Palestinian presidency called on the UN Security Council to take heed, "because [Israel] taking this step threatens security and peace in the region and the world. It crosses all red lines," the statement said.
Earlier on Friday, Israel bombed targets in Rafah.
The attack took place hours after Biden administration officials and aid agencies warned Israel against expanding its Gaza ground offensive to the town where more than half of the territory's 2.3 million people have sought refuge.
Air strikes hit two residential buildings in Rafah, while two other sites were bombed in central Gaza, including one that damaged a kindergarten-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians.
Twenty-two people were killed, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies arriving at hospitals.
US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Israel's conduct in the war, ignited by the deadly October 7 Hamas attack, had been "over the top," the harshest US criticism yet of its close ally and an expression of concern about a soaring civilian death toll in Gaza.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that the overall Palestinian death toll was approaching 28,000, with about two-thirds of the dead women and children.
The count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel's stated intention to expand its ground offensive to Rafah also prompted an unusual public backlash in Washington DC.
"We have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation," Vedant Patel, a US State Department spokesman, said on Thursday.
He said going ahead with such an offensive now, "with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster."
John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah was "not something we would support".
The comments signalled intensifying US friction with Mr Netanyahu, who pushed a message of "total victory" in the war this week, at a time when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel to press for a ceasefire deal in exchange for the release of dozens of Hamas-held hostages.
Aid agency officials also sounded warnings over the prospect of a Rafah offensive.
"We need Gaza's last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems to stay functional," Catherine Russell, head of the UN children's agency UNICEF, said.
"Without them, hunger and disease will skyrocket, taking more child lives."
AP/Reuters
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