Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted his troops will advance on the Gazan city of Rafah, defying international pleas to reconsider. He has ordered his army to prepare for a ground assault on the city, where some 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, but talked of first ‘allowing the civilian population to leave the battle zones’. His aim is to eliminate Hamas from the city. The prime ministers of France, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have urged Israel to refrain from the operation to avoid a humanitarian disaster, while Spain and Ireland have asked the EU to investigate ‘urgently’ whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry reports that the death toll in Gaza is now at least 28,500 casualties.