PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israeli airstrikes pummeled densely crowded Rafah on Saturday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to "prepare to operate" in the southern Gazan border city that has become a last refuge for displaced Palestinians.
Netanyahu's planned offensive on Rafah, where an estimated 1.3 million people have fled, has drawn condemnation from rights groups and Washington, while Palestinians have said they have nowhere left to retreat.
Witnesses reported new strikes on Rafah early on Saturday after the Israeli military intensified air raids, with fears rising among Palestinians of a coming ground invasion.
"We don't know where to go," said Mohammad al-Jarrah, a Palestinian who was displaced from further north to Rafah.
The city is the last major population center in the Gaza Strip that Israeli troops have yet to enter and also the main point of entry for desperately needed relief supplies.
Netanyahu told military officials on Friday to "submit to the cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions" of Hamas militants holed up in Rafah, his office said.
The United States State Department said it did not support a ground offensive in Rafah, warning that, if not properly planned, such an operation risks "disaster."
The US is Israel's main international backer, providing it with billions of dollars in military aid. But in a sign of growing frustration, US President Joe Biden issued his strongest criticism of Israel yet, describing the retaliation for Hamas' October 7 attacks on the country's south as going too far.
"I'm of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response ... in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top," Biden said. "There are a lot of innocent people who are starving ... in trouble and dying, and it's got to stop."
'Die in our homes'
Displaced Palestinians have flooded into Rafah, where hundreds of thousands are sleeping in tents pushed up against the Egyptian border.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) images showed scenes of devastation, with people lining for increasingly scarce water.
Rights groups have sounded alarm at the prospect of a ground incursion.
"Israel's declared ground offensive on Rafah would be catastrophic and must not proceed," aid group Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. "There is no place that is safe in Gaza and no way for people to leave."
The Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry on Saturday said that at least 110 people were killed in overnight bombardment, including 25 in strikes in Rafah.
The previous day, the Palestinian Red Crescent said three children were killed in a strike in the city.
"We heard the sound of a huge explosion next to our house ... we found two children martyred in the street," said Jaber al-Bardini, 60. "There is no safe place in Rafah. If they storm Rafah, we will die in our homes."
Israeli forces raided the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza's biggest city, on Friday after a weekslong siege during which the Palestinian Red Crescent has reported "intense artillery shelling and heavy gunfire."
The medical organization said Israeli forces had arrested eight of its team members at the hospital, including "four doctors, as well as four wounded individuals and five patients' companions."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said any Israeli push into Rafah "would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare."
But Netanyahu's office said it would be "impossible" to achieve the war's objective of eliminating Hamas while leaving four of the militants' battalions in Rafah.
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