The Israeli press writes that the offensive on Rafah is imminent / One million Palestinians have taken refuge in the city in the Gaza Strip

Israel is about to send military forces to the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, anticipates the Israeli press picked up by Reuters and Agerpres on Wednesday.

The press in Israel writes that preparations for the evacuation of Palestinian civilians sheltering in the town on the border with Egypt are underway.

The Israel Hayom newspaper cites a government decision that, following the deadlock in negotiations with Hamas, the Rafah assault will take place “very soon”. Similar information was published by other media institutions, and video recordings from social media show what appears to be the construction of a tent camp for those evacuated from Rafah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the office of the spokesperson of the Israeli armed forces have not yet commented on the information.

Over a million Palestinians from other parts of the Gaza Strip, controlled until the Israeli offensive by the Islamist group Hamas, took refuge in Rafah. The situation of civilians, after six months of war, worries both the West and Egypt, which has ruled out accepting refugees in the Sinai Peninsula, although satellite images showed in February that the Egyptian army is building a refugee camp there.

The Israeli government says Rafah is a Hamas stronghold

Israel, pressed by the increasingly serious humanitarian crisis, promised to take measures to protect the Palestinian population. The government led by Netanyahu claims, however, that there are still four Hamas battalions in Rafah, which were not affected by the fighting and received as reinforcements thousands of retreating fighters.

The Israeli executive states that victory in the conflict triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel is not possible without the conquest of the city. Hamas does not comment on the deployment of its forces.

The spokesman for the armed organization within the group, Abu Ubaida, said in a speech on Tuesday, 200 days after the start of the fighting, that Israel had achieved nothing but “humiliation and defeat” in the campaign which, according to the health authorities, cost the lives of more than 34,000 Palestinians.

In the attack on October 7 last year, Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took 253 hostages. In the fighting that resulted in the occupation of a large part of the Gaza Strip, 262 Israeli soldiers also fell.