News Center- The Israeli military has issued an order for residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate the southern Gazan city ahead of a ground assault, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday.

In the statement, the IDF said that it was not setting a timeframe for the Rafah evacuation, however, but would make operational assessments. The Israeli army estimated it would need to move 100,000 people from Rafah in the 'limited scope' evacuation. The Army Radio had said that Israeli armed forces had begun evacuating Palestinian civilians ahead of a threatened assault, although the military did not confirm that report, Reuters reported. “Army Radio said evacuations were focused on a few peripheral districts of Rafah, from which evacuees would be directed to tent cities in nearby Khan Younis and Al Muwassi.”

Some Palestinian families

KAN 11, an Israeli state-owned television channel, reported that the Israeli army started to evacuate many neighborhoods of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans took shelter due to Israeli attacks. Some Palestinians families were leaving areas east of Rafah after the Israeli military called on them to evacuate, the Times of Israel reported.

Airstrikes before evacuation

According to local reports, the Israeli military launched airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah before the evacuation, killing at least six Palestinians, including a baby and a child. The dead bodies were reportedly taken to Abu Yousef Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah.

 The evacuation order came after the ceasefire and hostage exchange talks in the Egyptian capital Cairo with the participation of a delegation of Hamas. On Sunday, Hamas announced that the cease-fire talks ended in Cairo after “in-depth and serious discussions”.

Israeli Defense Minister: The attack on Rafah will be launched soon

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sunday that the order to launch the Israeli onslaught on Rafah would be given “very soon.”

He said that Israel assesses the likelihood of reaching an agreement with Hamas as low. "The implication of a large-scale operation in Rafah and other areas of the Gaza Strip very soon.”