The Israeli military has floated the idea of so-called "humanitarian islands" in central Gaza as it plans to flush out the majority of a million displaced Palestinians ahead of its planned assault on southern Rafah.
The fate of the people in Rafah has become a major area of international concern and some of Israel's closest allies – including the U.S. – and humanitarian groups, worried an offensive in the region densely crowded with so many displaced people would be a catastrophe. Rafah is also Gaza's main entry point for desperately needed aid.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, maintains a Rafah offensive is crucial to achieving Israel's aim of destroying the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, following its Oct. 7 incursion that caused 1,160 deaths and around 250 were taken hostage.
Israel's war on Gaza, in comparison, has killed more than 31,000, according to Gaza health officials, left much of the enclave in ruins and displaced some 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people.
Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said moving those in Rafah to the designated areas, which he said would be done in coordination with international actors, was a key part of the military's preparations for its anticipated invasion of Rafah, where Israel alleges Hamas maintains a significant presence.
Rafah has swelled in size in the last months as Palestinians in Gaza have fled fighting in nearly every other corner of the territory. The town is covered in tents.
"We need to make sure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? To humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community," Hagari told reporters at a briefing.
Hagari said those islands would provide temporary housing, food, water and other necessities to evacuated Palestinians.
He did not say, however, when the Rafah evacuation would occur, nor when the Rafah offensive would begin, saying that Israel wanted the timing to be right operationally and to be coordinated with neighboring Egypt, which has said it does not want an influx of displaced Palestinians crossing its border.
The U.S. has been firm with Israel over its concerns about Rafah, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Washington had yet to receive from Israel its plans for civilians there.
"We need to see a plan that will get civilians out of harm's way if there's a military operation in Rafah," he told reporters in Washington after convening a virtual ministerial meeting on Gaza aid with officials from the U.N., the EU, Britain. Cyprus, Qatar and the UAE. "We've not yet seen such a plan."
At the start of the war, Israel directed evacuees to a slice of undeveloped land along Gaza's Mediterranean coast that it designated as a safe zone. But aid groups said there were no real plans in place to receive large numbers of displaced there. Israeli strikes also targeted the area.
More than 31,300 Palestinians, more than two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza and most of its 2.3 million people forced from their homes, Gaza's Health Ministry says.
Israel blames the civilian death toll on Hamas claiming the group fights in dense, residential areas. The military claims to have killed 13,000 fighters, without providing any evidence.
Meanwhile, fighting continues across Gaza. An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the U.N. agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one staff member from the agency and four others.
The death brings to 165 the number of workers for the agency killed during the past five months of fighting, according to UNRWA.
Gaza's health authorities said a total of five people were killed in the strike on the yard of the UNRWA warehouse.
Hagari said the army was looking into the report.
The conflict has sparked a humanitarian disaster that has led to growing hunger nearing a full-blown famine. Israeli attacks, restrictions and the breakdown of order inside Gaza have hobbled aid delivery in the area, according to the United Nations. Israel denies it is restricting the entry of aid.
The crisis has been particularly acute in northern Gaza, Israel's initial target in the early weeks of the war.
Hagari said Wednesday Israel plans to "flood the area" with aid, with plans to scale up the entry of goods from multiple points in northern Gaza, after half a dozen trucks delivered aid entered from the north on Tuesday as part of a pilot program.
He did not say how many more trucks were expected to enter and at what frequency.
Hagari also said representatives from the U.S. military were expected in Israel this week to further coordinate a planned U.S. floating pier that will be built off the coast of Gaza, which he said would be "significant" for northern Gaza.
The U.S. and other countries have also been airdropping food into northern Gaza in recent weeks to help alleviate the crisis. Aid groups said air drops and sea shipments are far less efficient and effective than bringing in food by truck.
