Palestinians brace for Rafah evacuation, Israeli assault plan

Trapped in and around Rafah, more than 1 million Palestinians braced for Israel to complete a plan to evacuate them and launch a ground assault against Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city.

Aid agencies warned that large numbers of civilians could die in the Israeli offensive and the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said it did not know how long it could work "in such a high risk operation."

"There is a sense of growing anxiety, growing panic in Rafah," said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA agency. "People have no idea where to go."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Friday announced that the military was ordered to develop a plan "for evacuating the population and destroying" four Hamas battalions that it said were deployed in Rafah.

Israel cannot achieve its goal of eliminating the Islamist militants who rule Gaza while those units remain, it said.

The statement, issued two days after Netanyahu rejected a Hamas ceasefire proposal that included the release of hostages held by the Palestinian militants, gave no further details.

Washington, Israel's main supporter, said it would not back an assault that did not protect civilians, and had briefed Israel on a new U.S. national security memorandum reminding countries receiving U.S. arms to adhere to international law.

"There are no new standards in this memo. We are not imposing new standards for military aid," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. "They (the Israelis) reiterated their willingness to provide these types of assurances."

More than a million people driven southwards by more than four months of Israeli bombing of Gaza are packed into Rafah and surrounding areas on the coastal enclave's border with Egypt, which has