Fascist Israel Positions New Brigades and Sets Up Tents for Rafah Genocide
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Late yesterday, David Mencer, a spokesman for the administration of war criminal Netanyahu, confirmed that the government is now “moving ahead” with its planned military mass extermination in Rafah.
Rafah is the southernmost major city in Gaza. It is already being shelled or subject to airstrikes on a regular basis, but when the final part of this war goes forward according to plans already approved within Netanyahu’s War Cabinet, the speed and thoroughness of the ethnic cleansing of the estimated over 1.5 million Palestinians forced there already by the Israelis is expected to be devastating.
Mencer’s comments were made as hard evidence of Israel’s final positioning moves in and around Rafah came to light this week.
Emboldened perhaps by the votes over the last week by both the corrupt U.S. House and Senate for another $26 of mostly military tribute to Israel, a bill that puppet Biden signed into law yesterday, Israel is now moving visibly and rapidly to prepare for that final assault.
A key part of Israel’s still-mostly-unannounced plan for what is about to happen to Rafah was announced by Netanyahu previously as including the forced evacuation of as many of Rafah’s residents as possible. Despite that even if all were kept safe in the process, this represents another war crime of sizable proportions for the zionist regime, the government proceeded to lay in logistics to support this.
One early step to support that involved purchasing what the military says are over 40,000 tents where people will be forced to relocate to or face imminent violent death once the ground attacks begin in earnest. Each of the tents is said to be capable of housing 12 people, which means these 40,000 tents could house 480,000 refugees temporarily.
As of early April, land was apparently already cleared for many thousands of these encampments in Khan Younis, a previously bombed-out shell of a city located 5 km (3 miles) north of Rafah. Based on aerial surveillance videos taken by Maxar Technologies, that land was marked off as to where each tent would be set up by April 7. By April 23, over 500 of those tents were already in place. More are expected to be set up over the next few days.
Yesterday, zionist officials revealed they had also begun moving into place two military reserve units specifically trained and outfitted for Rafah’s ethnic cleansing.
According to briefings for the press yesterday by IDF spokespersons, the 679th “Yiftah” Armored Brigade and the 2nd “Carmeli” Infantry Brigade are already on the move to the borders of central Gaza and soon to be entering that region. They had previously been positioned just outside Gaza’s northern border.
Those two brigades are being relocated to make it possible to move troops from the Nahal Brigade, one of Israel’s elite corps which it says had been securing the central part of Gaza, to move southwards. There they will join the bulk of IDF’s 162nd Division. Once there, they will be outfitted with whatever military supplies they may need and briefed with the latest intelligence and military plans to finish the job of cleaning out what Israel claims are suspected Hamas “terrorist” cells in central Gaza, and then to enter Rafah. To date, Israel has killed mostly women, children and the elderly, with few resistance fighters being targeted.
The combined new forces being brought into Gaza will be moved under the administration of the Israel Defense Forces’ 99th Division.
According to the Israeli spokespeople yesterday, the two reserve groups have been undergoing extensive training for their upcoming battles “in recent weeks”. Israel said the brigades had “practiced battle techniques and learned the main insights and lessons from fighting and maneuvering in the Gaza Strip so far.”
Israel also said yesterday that one of the brigades just coming to Gaza will supposedly be used to secure the floating pier the U.S. Department of Defense is building off the coast, as a means of bringing in more humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. Though recent declarations of this kind from the Israelis suggests this is yet another ruse to allow moving troops into a sensitive region in Gaza, and that Israeli likely has no intent to let humanitarian aid come in now, especially as the next invasion is imminent, this is the story the insane zionists are sticking to for now.
Another of the brigades is going to be placed in a previously established corridor running across central Gaza, from the Mediterranean coast on the west to occupied Gaza abuts Israel on the west. That brigade, the IDF spokespeople confirmed, will be used primarily as a base for additional ground raids on central and northern Gaza. It will also be used to block Gazans from escaping to the north as the military destroys most of whoever and whatever is left standing in the southern part of the Strip.
Israel continues to insist that Hamas has a strong military presence in Gaza. They claim two Hamas battalions with some strength are still present in central Gaza, in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah camp regions. They say there are four more in Rafah: one located in the east, another in Tel Sultan to the west, a third in Shoboura to the north, and in Yana, in southern metropolitan region.
In a separate briefing to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster yesterday, Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, the commander of the 162nd Division which will be carrying out much of the slaughter in Rafah, used the opportunity to issue some stern warnings to anyone who would stand in the way of his forces accomplishing their mission.
“Hamas was hit hard in the northern sector. It was also hit hard in the center of the Strip. And soon it will be hit hard in Rafah, too,” he said. “Hamas should know that when the IDF goes into Rafah, it would do best to raise its hands in surrender. Rafah will not be the Rafah of today… There won’t be munitions there. And there won’t be hostages there.”
In addition to setting up the tent cities for those pushed out of Rafah and bringing in the new brigades, Israel also acknowledged it was holding discussions with Egypt over the Rafah invasion.
Israel’s plan for this last major phase of its war in Gaza was previously disclosed by Netanyahu’s War Cabinet to include seizure of the southern border of Gaza, and up to several kilometers southwards from the border into Egyptian territory.
Israel has also previously put Egypt on notice that it plans to force some substantial numbers of those Palestinians in Rafah across the border into Egypt, with that country then being forced to accommodate them in some way. Although Egypt is preparing for some of that by setting up emergency refugee stationing areas, it maintains it is doing so not as an accommodation to the zionist forces of Israel, but as a humanitarian move if the Israelis cannot be stopped.
Egypt’s State Information Service said the Cairo government warned Israel on multiple occasions that attacking Gaza “would lead to massive human massacres, losses [and] widespread destruction.” Sadly, Israel probably agrees with that but will end up blaming those who they murder in the process and whose homes they destroy as responsible for this. To date, Egypt's corrupt government has been entirely subservient to Israel.
According to a further Israeli government briefing yesterday, the next step for Israel is to finish the forced evacuation plan for Rafah, a step which will take about two weeks to complete. The military will also move to secure Rafah during the same period, even without the invasion having taken place, all of which means increased air attacks and rocket fire in the city. As soon as those plans are ready, the spokespersons said the evacuation will take about another month to complete.
That works out to beginning the forced evacuations starting around May 14. By mid-June those relocated should be in place and the Israeli Defense Forces are expected to move into Rafah to destroy most remaining buildings and launch final and most treacherous genocidal attack on the Palestinian people of Gaza.
It is currently unclear all that might happen to Rafah between now and the full-on assault start. The number of drones, rocket shells, and direct aerial attacks on Rafah are rising daily, with no letup expected other than to make way for military vehicles carting those removed from the city during the evacuations.
Hezbollah has continued its attacks on the northern occupied territories but has had little impact. Yemen continues to try and stop some ships that might be supporting Israel, the UK or Britain, but it has also had little impact on Israel. Iran has backed down after its very limited retaliation against Israel bombing its embassy in Syria.
The genocide will continue, as will the feeble resistance.