by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel insisted Saturday that Israel would not bow to international pressure to cancel its planned ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city that is now home to more than a million Palestinians.
Many of the people now in Rafah are displaced and living in schools, tents or the homes of friends and family, part of a desperate search for safe haven from Israel’s military campaign, which has continued for decades. more than four months. Their lives are a daily struggle to find enough food and water to survive.
“Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are basically telling us: let’s lose the war,” Netanyahu said at a news conference in Jerusalem on Saturday night. “It is true that there is a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment when we must say that we will not do half or a third of the work.”
Around the same time as Netanyahu addressed the news conference, thousands of anti-government protesters filled a central street in Tel Aviv, the largest protest against the prime minister in months. They filled the same street where mass protests against Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the country’s judiciary riled the nation before the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Calls for immediate elections emerged above the noise of horns. Protesters lit a red flare in the middle of a drum circle while others held flags and stared at a half-dozen police officers on horseback.
“The people need to rise up and the government needs to go,” said one protester, Yuval Lerner, 57. Lerner said that even before the war, he had lost confidence in the government to have the nation’s best interests at heart, but “Oct. 7 proved it,” he said.
Netanyahu’s comments also came as world leaders and international organizations were raising the alarm that an invasion of Rafah would only worsen the humanitarian disaster for displaced Palestinians.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, reiterated on Saturday his call for Israel to refrain from launching a military operation in Rafah “that would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”
Netanyahu, however, said Palestinians would be allowed to leave Rafah and maintained that there was “a lot of space” north of the city where civilians could resettle.
The Israeli leader downplayed the chances of a quick breakthrough in indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire in exchange for the release of the hostages. He said Hamas – the armed group that long controlled Gaza and led the October 7 attack on Israel that started the war – was making “ridiculous” demands in those negotiations.
Explaining his decision to prevent Israeli officials from participating in follow-up negotiations in Cairo earlier this week, the prime minister went on to say that Hamas had not given up on its demands “not one nanometer.”
“There is nothing to do until we see a change,” he added.
Earlier on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, issued a statement accusing Israel of “procrastinating” in addressing Hamas’ demands. Hamas has been calling for a comprehensive ceasefire, the reconstruction of Gaza, an end to the Israeli blockade of the territory and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
President Biden said in a press conference on Friday that he did not expect Israel to invade Rafah as efforts to free the hostages continued.
South Africa this week asked the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest judicial body, to intervene to stop Israel’s planned advance toward Rafah. But on Friday, the court declined to issue new restrictions aimed at preventing such an incursion.
Instead, he said the “dangerous situation” in Gaza, including Rafah, required Israel to comply with its previous ruling last month, which included taking “all measures at its disposal” to prevent the crime of genocide committed by its forces.
Netanyahu has described as “false” and “outrageous” the accusation that Israel has participated in genocide.
Israeli officials have insisted that a raid on Rafah is necessary to destroy the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza and try to root out Palestinian militants there. But the Israelis have not yet presented a plan to evacuate civilians as demanded by the United States, Israel’s closest ally.
Many civilians sheltering in Rafah have already moved several times as Israel’s military campaign moved further south, and some have said their homes north of the city have been destroyed and they have grown tired of repeatedly relocating.
“If they want to come here, among all these people, there will be massacres,” said Khalil el-Halabi, 70, one of many displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza who have sought refuge in Rafah.
Some displaced Palestinians have now returned north to Deir al Balah in central Gaza. according to the UN humanitarian coordinator.
People in Rafah are so desperate for food that they are stopping aid trucks and eating what they can find locally, according to the United Nations.
Ahmad al-Ghazaly, 26, another displaced Palestinian in Rafah, said he was sheltering in a tent with his parents, who he said were chronically ill. He said he had hoped to obtain permits for the pair to leave for Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, but that the process had become even more difficult and expensive in recent weeks.
“It has been four months in which we have hardly slept, eaten, showered and there are constant bombings,” said al-Ghazaly. “I am sorry to say that we live in conditions that are hardly better than those of animals.”
As the Israeli invasion of Rafah looms, neighboring Egypt is increasingly concerned that an Israeli operation in the city could send Palestinian refugees into its territory. Egypt has warned Israel of “dire consequences” if Israeli forces embark on a ground operation in Rafah.
But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attempted to allay those concerns on Friday, saying Israel had “no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians to Egypt.”
Israel and Egypt have signed a decades-long peace treaty that is a cornerstone of stability in the Middle East.
In recent weeks, Egypt has reinforced the border with Gaza in what some analysts have seen as a response to fears of an influx of Palestinians. A contractor and an engineer recently told the New York Times that they had received a government commission to build a five-meter-high (about 16 feet) concrete wall to enclose a five-square-kilometer plot of land on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza in Rafah.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said his country was firmly opposed to any attempt to expel Palestinians into Egyptian territory and had no intention of providing “safe zones.” for Palestinian refugees. But if such a situation arose, he added, the Egyptian authorities would act with “the necessary humanity” and provide “support to innocent civilians.”
Adam Sella contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
