Hundreds of Palestinians began evacuating from areas east of Rafah amid Israeli plans to invade the city in the southern Gaza Strip, according to witnesses, Anadolu news agency reported.

Witnesses told Anadolu that evacuees began to move toward central and western Rafah, west of Khan Younis and north of Deir al-Balah.

The Israeli army issued immediate evacuation orders on Monday for Palestinians in the eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah and called on them to move to the town of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.

Around 100,000 Palestinian civilians are estimated to be living in the areas to be evacuated, according to Israeli Army Radio.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas incursion, which killed around 1,200 people.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians and wounded 77,700 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian Territory.

More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement besides a crippling blockade on food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Source: Middle East Monitor