Israel army evacuates about 100,000 from east Rafah

The Israeli army said on Monday (May 6) that it was evacuating about 100,000 people from eastern Rafah, ahead of an expected ground assault in the southern city of Gaza.

"The estimate is around 100,000 people," a military spokesman told journalists when asked how many people were being evacuated.

About 1.2 million people are currently sheltering in Rafah, according to the World Health Organization. Most of them fled there from elsewhere in Gaza during seven-month war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants

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Israel army earlier stated that east Rafah evacuation is a "limited scope operation", calling the operation to begin evacuating residents of eastern Rafah in the Palestinian territory of Gaza "temporary and limited".

"This morning ... we began a limited scope operation to temporarily evacuate residents in the eastern part of Rafah," a military spokesman told journalists in an online briefing.

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