Israel buys 40,000 tents ahead of Rafah evacuation: report

Ahead of any attack, the military has said civilians will be evacuated (File)

The Israeli Defense Ministry will buy 40,000 tents ahead of the evacuation of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which Israel says it plans to attack to destroy the Hamas group’s remaining battalions, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

The Defense Ministry did not immediately confirm the purchase, and The Jerusalem Post, one of the newspapers that reported the news, said the purchase was leaked without a formal announcement.

News of the planned purchase of the tents, which can accommodate 12 people each, is one of the first signs of concrete preparations for the evacuation of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have been sheltering.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly floated plans to invade Rafah, the last remaining Gaza city that has not suffered a major ground attack.

The military said four Hamas battalions and an unspecified number of senior Islamist movement commanders remain in Rafah. Israel has said in the past that Hamas has about 1,000 fighters per battalion.

Ahead of the attack, the military said it would evacuate civilians to so-called “humanitarian islands” in central Gaza, where food, water and medical facilities would be provided.

The planned attack on Rafah drew widespread condemnation, with even Israel’s closest ally the United States warning Netanyahu that the country would face global isolation if it went ahead.

An Israeli offensive in Gaza follows a devastating Hamas-led attack on Israel last October that killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, leaving the enclave in ruins and leaving most of the population Displaced.

Ground and air attacks have killed more than 33,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health authorities, and calls for a ceasefire are growing around the world.

Israel says it has killed about 10,000 Hamas fighters and essentially destroyed most of the movement’s organized fighting forces, but needs to take down Rafah in order to dismantle the group’s military and administrative structures and The goal is to bring back the hostages.

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