THE volunteers were not aware of plans to evacuate Palestinians from the southernmost city of Gaza ahead of the Israeli attack. They consider the transfer impossible under current conditions.
“The rumors are that the possibility of a major operation in Rafah is increasing,” said Fabrizio Carboni, Middle East Regional Director for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on the sidelines of an aid conference in the United Arab Emirates.
“When we see the extent of the damage in the central region (Gaza) and in the north, it is not clear to us where people will be moved to where they can get proper shelter and essential services,” he added.
“So right now, with the information we have and from our position, we don’t see this (massive evacuation) as possible,” he continued.
More than 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have taken refuge in Rafah, the last major population center in Gaza that Israeli ground forces have not yet entered, although thousands have been seen returning north.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been talking for two months about sending troops to Rafah to go after Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza.
Also read: Israeli attack on Rafah kills 22 people, a pregnant woman and 18 children
On Sunday, he said the Israeli military would increase pressure to “deliver additional and painful blows” to the group behind the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the ongoing war.
But Israel’s allies including Washington have warned against carrying out an operation in Rafah, fearing it would worsen the already disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“At the moment we do not see any plans for the evacuation of civilians,” Carboni said during an interview on Tuesday at the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development Conference (DIHAD).
Also read: Gaza Strip Official: Israeli Attack Kills Nine Family Members in Rafah
But there is no requirement for military operations to be without devastating humanitarian consequences.
“Given the level of destruction, given people are exhausted, some of them are injured and sick, and limited access to food and essential services, I see (evacuation) as very challenging.”
The Israeli government said it was planning different evacuation scenarios, including the construction of a tent city that would be spared from the fighting and would be built with international support.
Also read: Israeli attack in Rafah kills women and children
Citing Egyptian officials’ explanation of Israel’s plans, the Wall Street Journal reported that the evacuation operation would last two to three weeks and be carried out in coordination with the United States and Arab countries, including the UAE and Egypt.
But Carboni said the evacuation would be “difficult” to complete within that timeframe.
Speaking to AFP at DIHAD on Tuesday, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) chairman Jan Egeland said everyone seemed to be counting down to fighting in the world’s largest refugee camp, Rafah.
Describing the Rafah attack as an “apocalyptic situation,” Egeland added that aid workers operating in Gaza had not been briefed on plans to reduce the suffering of civilians during the Rafah attack.
“There is no information, no consultation with humanitarian agencies, no advice, no hope,” he said.
Humanitarian activists in Gaza have not heard from donors.
They hear nothing from Western countries that support Israel, and nothing from Israel itself,” Egeland said.
“What they heard was that Netanyahu said he would attack but did not plan where civilians should go, how aid could be provided or how access could be secured,” he said.
“We really don’t know how to mitigate this countdown to disaster,” he explained.
The small amount of aid that goes into Gaza is distributed in real-time so there is no reserve pool that can be used in the event of a large-scale population movement.
“There are no stocks, no fuel and more importantly, no liquidity. There is no money, we cannot pay our staff’s salaries. We cannot pay those who provide these services,” the NRC chairman added.
Egeland said some Palestinians had returned to areas in northern Gaza in recent weeks, but more than a million people remained in Rafah.
“For those who have left what awaits them in the north are ruins, total ruins and unexploded bombs and, in many cases, more bombings,” he said.
“There is no safe place in Gaza if people leave Rafah,” he continued.
The Gaza war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israeli counterattacks have killed at least 34,183 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. (AFP/Z-8)
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