UNRWA is not not evacuating from Rafah amid Israeli offensive
Israel orders Rafah evacuation as Gaza truce talks stall
UNRWA announced on Monday that the agency is not evacuating from Rafah amid the Israeli offensive.
The UN agency in a statement posted on X, said, “An Israeli offensive in #Rafah would mean more civilian suffering & deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people
The statement from the agency arrives as Israel orders Rafah evacuation as Gaza truce talks stall.
Israeli forces called on Monday for people in Rafah to evacuate to “an expanded humanitarian area”.
Rafah is the area into which the Israeli forces previously pushed huge numbers of displaced Palestinians as it continued its offensive in Gaza following the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas attack.
An Israeli military spokesperson told journalists about 100,000 people were being evacuated from the area.
The Israeli military in social media posts said that it “encourages” residents in eastern Rafah to move to an area in the al-Mawasi refugee camp, located by the Mediterranean west of Khan Younis.
The army claimed that calls to “temporarily” relocate would be “conveyed through flyers, SMS messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic”.
“[Israeli forces] will continue pursuing Hamas everywhere in Gaza until all the hostages that they are holding in captivity are back home,” it said.
In a post on X, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee specified the appeal was to all people in the ash-Shoka area in the neighbourhoods of as-Salam, Janina, Tabet Ziraa and al-Byouk.
