Israel has called on residents from more areas of Rafah in the Gaza Strip to evacuate and head to the “expanded humanitarian area”.
Despite heavy US pressure, Israel has said it will proceed with an assault on the southern city, where more than one million people have taken refuge – around half of them children – and Israeli forces say Hamas militants are dug in.
Tensions over the gathering offensive have led President Joe Biden to warn the US would stop supplying Israel with some weapons if it presses ahead with an invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to proceed with the attack with or without US arms, saying “we will fight with our fingernails” if needed in a defiant statement.
Israel says Rafah is the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza and key to its goal of dismantling the group’s capabilities and returning scores of hostages captured in Hamas’s 7 October attack that triggered the war.
However, Hamas has repeatedly regrouped, even in the hardest-hit parts of Gaza.
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