Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of Rafah on Monday in what appeared to be preparation for a long-threatened assault on Hamas holdouts in the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering,
Reuters reports.
Instructed by Arabic text messages, telephone calls, and flyers to move to what the Israeli military called an "expanded humanitarian zone" 20 km (7 miles) away, some Palestinian families lumbered out under chilly spring rain.
Soon after midday in Gaza, several explosions were heard in east Rafah, residents and Hamas media said, with an air strike targeting some houses where lines of smoke and dust sprung up.
A senior official of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that governs Gaza, said the evacuation order was a "dangerous escalation" that would have consequences.
"The U.S. administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism," the official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Reuters, referring to Israel's alliance with Washington.
Israel's military said it had begun encouraging residents of Rafah to evacuate in a "limited scope" operation. It gave no specific reasons nor did it say if offensive action might follow.
Some Palestinians piled children and possessions onto donkey carts to begin relocation, while others left by pick-up or on foot through streets turned to mud and puddles by rains.
"It has been raining heavily and we don't know where to go. I have been worried that this day may come, I have now to see where I can take my family," one refugee, Abu Raed, told Reuters via a chat app.
