A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said that Israel was “moving ahead” with a ground operation in Rafah. The defence official, however, gave no timeline.
The official said Israel’s Defence Ministry had bought 40,000 tents, each with the capacity for 10 to 12 people, to house Palestinians relocated from Rafah in advance of an assault.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Israel will press ahead with the assault on Rafah, the last major population centre in Gaza that Israeli ground troops have yet to enter.
Israel, which launched its war against Hamas after its October 7 attacks on Israeli towns, says Rafah is home to four Hamas combat battalions reinforced by thousands of retreating fighters.
Israel, however, drew a warning from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, who said that any military operations in Rafah would have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in the sector and on regional peace and security.
Rafah abuts the Egyptian border and is sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled after the Israel-Hamas broke out more than six months ago.
Israel’s closest ally, the US, has called on it to set aside plans for an assault on Rafah and says that it can combat Hamas fighters there by other means.
Israel has withdrawn most of its ground troops from southern Gaza but has kept up air strikes and conducted raids into areas its troops abandoned.
Efforts by the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker an extended ceasefire in time to head off an assault on Rafah have so far failed.
Gaza officials say that more than 34,000 people have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, with thousands more bodies feared buried under rubble.
