Israel said Monday night that a truce offer accepted by the Palestinian group Hamas does not meet its key demands.
A statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office said Tel Aviv will send working-level teams for talks with mediators “to exhaust the possibility of achieving an agreement on terms that are acceptable to Israel.”
According to the statement, Israel's War Cabinet decided to push ahead with an operation in Rafah “in order to apply military pressure on Hamas, with the goal of making progress on freeing the hostages and the other war aims.”
Hamas said Monday evening that it had accepted a Qatari-Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The Israeli army issued immediate evacuation orders early Monday for Palestinians in the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah and called on them to move to the town of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.
Around 100,000 Palestinian civilians are estimated to be living in the areas to be evacuated, according to Israeli Army Radio.
Rafah is home to more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians who have taken refuge from the war launched by Israel following Hamas' Oct. 7 attack that killed nearly 1,200 people.
Since then, the Israeli onslaught has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, besides causing a humanitarian catastrophe.
Nearly seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave's population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is "plausible" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Tel Aviv to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians there.
