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Picture from January 27th: Israeli tank in Khan Yunis north of Rafah

Photo: Mohammed Saber / EPA

The radical Islamic group Hamas does not want to continue negotiating the release of hostages if Israel's military invades Rafah. "Any Israeli ground offensive in Rafah on the border with the Gaza Strip will destroy hostage exchange negotiations," the Hamas television station Aqsa Television quoted a senior Hamas leader as saying on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army on Friday to prepare an offensive on Rafah in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip. Rafah, near the border with Egypt, is the only place in the coastal area where Hamas still exercises control. Netanyahu's office did not provide details or a timeline, only that an escape corridor would be opened.

“We are not being careless in this matter,” Netanyahu said in an interview with the US broadcaster ABC News, excerpts of which the broadcaster reported in advance on Sunday night. The civilian population will be given a “safe corridor so that they can leave the area.” When asked where the more than one million Palestinians in the city bordering Egypt should go, Netanyahu said that "a detailed plan" was being drawn up.

The military offensive is considered highly problematic because more than half of the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip are crowded there. Many Palestinians are seeking protection there in a very small space. But after inconclusive ceasefire talks, Netanyahu said this week that Israeli forces would continue fighting until "total victory."

The Israeli military ordered civilians to flee south at the start of its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Which raises the question of what Netanyahu's "detailed plan" looks like. Since the start of the war triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7, around two-thirds of the area has been declared an evacuation zone.

Aid organizations are therefore warning that many people will die in a ground operation in Rafah. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, almost 28,000 people have been killed since the war began.

Israel's neighboring countries, partners and important mediators also warned on Saturday of a catastrophe and the consequences if the military implements its plans.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said any Israeli ground offensive on Rafah would have "disastrous consequences" and asserted that Israel intends to eventually expel Palestinians from their land. Egypt warns that any movement of Palestinians into Egypt would jeopardize the four-decade-old peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Another mediator, Qatar, also predicted a catastrophe, and Saudi Arabia announced "very serious consequences." Israel's new tactics are also causing increasing tensions between Netanyahu and the United States, whose officials have said an invasion of Rafah without a plan for civilians there would lead to great misery.

"The people of Gaza cannot vanish into thin air," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on X, adding that an Israeli offensive on Rafah would be a "humanitarian catastrophe in the making."

Löw/dpa/Reuters/AP