After the Israeli military issued its evacuation order, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain reiterated that he remained “deeply concerned” about an invasion, while Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Office warned Israel not to move forward on what called a “bloody and systematic” campaign to raid all territories. Gaza and displace its residents.
In Rafah, some Palestinians quickly dismantled their tents in the pouring rain and began to leave. Others questioned whether it was safe to leave. Gazans and aid groups have said the Israeli military has bombed areas it had previously designated as safe for civilians.
Nidal Kuhail, 29, a former Gaza City resident, said he was overcome with anxiety and torn about what to do. The tent in which he was taking refuge was not in the Rafah area covered by Israel’s evacuation order.
“If we have to leave, we will enter the unknown,” Kuhail said. “Are we going to have a place to go? Can we find a place to set up the store?
Workers at UNRWA, the main United Nations agency helping Palestinians in Gaza, estimated on Monday that about 200 people an hour were fleeing the evacuation zone, said Sam Rose, the agency’s planning director.
Israel was telling Palestinians to move to an area that includes al-Mawasi, a coastal section of Gaza it has advised people to go to for months, as well as areas further north along the coast to Deir al -Balah. The army said the area had field hospitals, tents and increased supplies of food, water and medicine.
Israel was not calling for a “large-scale evacuation of Rafah,” a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said on Monday. “This is a very targeted operation right now to get people out of harm’s way.”
But Rose said the area could not safely house all the civilians who have taken refuge in Rafah, in part because parts of it are littered with unexploded bombs.
Going there would also take them further away from entry points for food, water, medicine and other supplies that aid agencies have struggled to distribute in Gaza.
“They would basically be going back into oblivion,” Rose said.
Mahmoud Mohammed al-Burdeiny, 26, said he thought Israel had been using the threat of an invasion of Rafah as a ruse to get a better deal with Hamas in ceasefire talks. But now the danger seemed real, he said.
So al-Burdeiny and his wife began packing their belongings and planning for the worst. They realized that they could take the doors of their house to use as shelter. And they could dismantle your furniture to use as firewood.