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Children next to a street art picture by the artist Amal Abo in Rafah, Gaza (end of December 2023): victims of the war

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It was actually supposed to be a discreet operation by the Foreign Office, but then the Israeli media got wind of it: the evacuation of an SOS children's village in Rafah, the refugee town in the south of the Gaza Strip.

As Foreign Ministry circles confirmed to SPIEGEL, 95 people were evacuated from the SOS Children's Village to the West Bank overland from Rafah via Egypt and Israel.

The goal: An SOS Children's Village in the city of Bethlehem.

"We are relieved that our intensive efforts were finally successful yesterday," a spokesman for the Foreign Office told SPIEGEL.

Among the evacuees are 68 Palestinian children between the ages of two and 14, as well as eleven employees and their family members.

The group left Gaza on Saturday, entered Israel on Monday morning, and then arrived in the West Bank yesterday evening.

According to Foreign Office circles, it was “a temporary evacuation due to the current emergency.”

In order not to endanger the operation, it was important to carry out the operation discreetly.

“We are fortunate that this only became public in the Israeli media shortly after our arrival in Bethlehem,” it continued.

The departure of the children and adults was closely accompanied by German representatives; the German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, apparently also spent hours at the Israeli-Egyptian crossing.

Rafah is the last remaining town in the Gaza Strip that has not yet been occupied by the Israeli army.

Here, around 1.5 million Palestinians have sought protection from the fighting in other parts of the sealed-off coastal area in a very small space and under the most difficult circumstances.

Israel's head of government recently announced again that he would take military action against Rafah and the Hamas units that remained there.

Prehistory extends to fall

The history of the evacuation of the children's village in Rafah goes back to last autumn.

The Foreign Office was first asked for help by the global SOS Children's Villages organization in mid-November last year.

At that time, Israeli attacks on Hamas positions were largely concentrated in the north of the Gaza Strip.

But according to those responsible on site, the situation in the children's village in Rafah was already dramatic - a difficult supply situation, a lack of food, problems with the power supply.

In mid-December, Lanna Idriss, CEO of SOS Children's Villages worldwide, reported on the aid organization's German website: "Our employees in Gaza have reported to us about heavy bombing near the SOS Children's Village."

The task for German diplomacy was delicate: On the one hand, the Palestinian side had to avoid the impression that this was the beginning of a large-scale resettlement or expulsion from Gaza.

And on the Israeli side, the Germans' focus could be more on the fate of Palestinian children than on that of the Israeli hostages.

At times the SOS organization also thought about taking the children to the Balkans, to Bosnia-Herzegovina, but they ultimately decided against it.

According to information from SPIEGEL, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) was repeatedly involved in the case on her trips to the Middle East, as was Seibert, the German ambassador.

Among other things, talks were held with Israeli foreign ministers and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security advisor in order to find a solution.

Massive criticism from right-wing circles in Israel

According to a report in the Times of Israel, the children were taken from the SOS Children's Village in Gaza via the Taba border crossing near Eilat to a facility in Bethlehem at the request of the German embassy.

Accordingly, the army leadership is criticized because the action was coordinated by the Ministry of Defense and the National Security Council, but did not receive express approval from the government's security cabinet.

Protests against the operation have come from Israeli settler leaders, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called it an "ethical failure" and demanded answers from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

According to the Times of Israel, the Israeli TV station Channel 12 quoted an unnamed source from the security cabinet who described the evacuation as "ridiculous and immoral behavior towards the hostages in Gaza and their families."

Shlomo Ne'eman, the outgoing head of the regional council of Gush Etzion in the West Bank, which borders Bethlehem, called on residents to protest on a road used for the evacuation.

"We offer more and more gestures and ensure that help is directed to a group of murderers when innocent citizens such as women, children, the elderly and the sick are held by these evil people," he said in a statement, according to the Times of Israel. .

Role of SOS Children's Villages

The SOS Children's Villages say they support over 2,000 projects worldwide, including permanent facilities.

Children, young people and families are supported on all sides of conflicts, "regardless of nationality, skin color, religion or ethnicity," says the German branch's website.

The most recent war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7th.

Islamist fighters committed atrocities primarily against Israeli civilians.

According to Israeli information, around 1,160 people were killed and around 250 hostages were taken to the Gaza Strip.

In response to the Hamas attack, Israel has since taken massive military action in the Gaza Strip, with the declared aim of destroying Hamas.

According to Hamas figures, which cannot be independently verified, more than 30,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since then.

However, Hamas does not list killed Hamas fighters separately.

According to Israeli figures, over 12,000 Hamas fighters had been killed by mid-February.