By WAFAA SHURAFA and FATMA KHALED
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s navy on Monday issued sweeping evacuation orders protecting Rafah and close by areas, indicating it may quickly launch one other main floor operation within the Gaza Strip’s southernmost metropolis.
Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas and renewed its air and floor conflict earlier this month. At the start of March it minimize off all provides of meals, gas, drugs and humanitarian support to the territory’s roughly 2 million Palestinians to strain Hamas to simply accept proposed modifications to the truce settlement. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada and the European Union.
Israel’s navy ordered Palestinians to move to Muwasi, a sprawl of squalid tent camps alongside the coast. The orders got here throughout Eid al-Fitr, a usually festive Muslim vacation marking the tip of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Final Could, Israel launched a serious operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, leaving giant elements in ruins. The navy seized a strategic hall alongside the border in addition to the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s solely gateway to the surface world that was not managed by Israel.
Israel was alleged to withdraw from the hall underneath the ceasefire it signed with Hamas in January underneath U.S. strain, however it later refused to do it, citing the necessity to forestall weapons smuggling.
Displaced Palestinians, who flee from Rafah, arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Monday, March 31, 2025, after the Israeli navy issued sweeping evacuation orders protecting most of Rafah. (AP Picture/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Displaced Palestinians, who flee from Rafah, arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Monday, March 31, 2025, after the Israeli navy issued sweeping evacuation orders protecting most of Rafah. (AP Picture/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Medics killed by Israeli hearth are buried
Dozens gathered at a funeral for among the 15 emergency responders killed by Israeli hearth throughout a floor operation in Rafah final week. The Worldwide Federation of Purple Cross and Purple Crescent Societies known as it the deadliest assault on its medics in a number of years.
Raed al-Nems, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Purple Crescent, stated the paramedics had been “killed in chilly blood” regardless of sporting uniforms and working in clearly labeled ambulances. At funeral prayers, their shrouds had been draped with Purple Crescent banners.
Israel’s navy has stated its forces opened hearth on a number of autos that raised suspicions by advancing with out headlights or emergency alerts. The navy stated a Hamas operative and eight different fighters had been amongst these killed.
The United Nations humanitarian workplace stated the useless included eight Purple Crescent staff, six members of Gaza’s Civil Protection, which operates underneath the Hamas-run authorities, and a U.N. employee.
Rescuers had been solely allowed to entry the world practically per week later to recuperate the our bodies. Footage of Sunday’s restoration operation launched by the U.N. confirmed Civil Protection staff digging right into a mound of sand and pulling out a physique sporting the identical orange vest as theirs.
Netanyahu vows to implement Trump’s Gaza plan
Israel has vowed to accentuate its navy operations till Hamas releases the remaining 59 hostages it holds — 24 of them believed to be alive. Israel has additionally demanded that Hamas disarm and depart the territory, circumstances that weren’t included within the ceasefire settlement and which Hamas has rejected.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Sunday that Israel would take cost of safety in Gaza after the conflict and implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza’s inhabitants in different international locations, describing it as “voluntary emigration.”
That plan has been universally rejected by Palestinians, who view it as forcible expulsion from their homeland. Human rights specialists say it could possible violate worldwide legislation.
Hamas has insisted on implementing the signed settlement, which known as for the rest of the hostages to be launched in alternate for an enduring ceasefire and an Israeli pullout. Negotiations over these elements of the settlement had been supposed to start in February however solely preliminary talks have been held.
The conflict started when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, rampaging by military bases and farming communities and killing some 1,200 individuals, largely civilians. The terrorists took one other 251 individuals hostage, most of whom have been launched in ceasefires or different offers.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed greater than 50,000 Palestinians, in accordance with Gaza’s Well being Ministry, which doesn’t say what number of had been civilians or combatants. At its peak, the conflict had displaced some 90% of Gaza’s inhabitants, with many fleeing a number of instances.
Giant areas of Gaza have been destroyed, and it’s unclear how or when something might be rebuilt.
Khaled reported from Cairo.
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