Rafah hit soon after evacuation order

Israel's military carried out airstrikes in Rafah yesterday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering.

Fears are growing of a full-blown assault in Rafah, long threatened by Israel, against holdouts of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as ceasefire talks in Cairo stall.

Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV said the airstrikes targeted areas in eastern Rafah near neighborhoods given evacuation orders.

Instructed by Arabic messages, phone calls, and flyers to move to what the Israeli military called an "expanded humanitarian zone" 20 kilometers away, some families began trundling away under chilly rain, piling children and possessions onto donkey carts and pick-ups or on foot through muddy streets.

A senior Hamas official said the evacuation order was a "dangerous escalation" that would have consequences.