Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel insisted Saturday that Israel would not bow to international pressure to call off its plan for a ground invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip that is now packed with more than 1 million Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Many of the people now in Rafah are displaced and living in schools, tents or the homes of friends and relatives, part of a desperate search for any safe refuge from Israel’s military campaign, which has dragged on for more than four months. Their lives are a daily struggle to find enough food and water to survive.

“Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are basically telling us: Lose the war,” Netanyahu said at a news conference in Jerusalem on Saturday evening. “It’s true that there’s a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment that we need to say that we won’t be doing a half or a third of the job.”

About the same time as Netanyahu addressed the news conference, thousands of anti-government protesters filled a central thoroughfare in Tel Aviv — the largest protest against the prime minister in months. They filled the same street where mass protests against Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the country’s judiciary riled the nation before the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Calls for an immediate election rose above a din of air horns. Protesters lit a red flare in the middle of a drum circle while others wielding flags stared down half a dozen police officers on horseback.

“The people need to rise up, and the government needs to go,” said one protester, Yuval Lerner, 57. Lerner said that even before the war, he lost confidence that the government has the nation’s best interest at heart, but “Oct. 7 proved it,” he said.

Netanyahu’s comments also came as world leaders and international organizations were raising alarms that an invasion of Rafah would only compound the humanitarian disaster for displaced Palestinians.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, reiterated Saturday his appeal to Israel to refrain from launching a military operation in Rafah “that would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”

Netanyahu, however, said Palestinians would be permitted to leave Rafah and contended that there was “a lot of space” north of the city where civilians could resettle.

The Israeli leader played down the chances of a quick breakthrough in indirect talks with Hamas on a cease-fire in exchange for a hostage release. He said that Hamas — the armed group that long controlled Gaza and which led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that started the war — was making “ludicrous” demands in those negotiations.

Explaining his decision to stop Israeli officials from participating in follow-up negotiations in Cairo earlier this week, the prime minister went on to say Hamas had not compromised on its demands “one nanometer.”

“There’s nothing to do until we see a change,” he added.

Earlier on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’ political wing, issued a statement accusing Israel of “procrastinating” in addressing Hamas’ demands. Hamas has been calling for a comprehensive cease-fire, the reconstruction of Gaza, the end of Israel’s blockade of the territory and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

President Joe Biden said at a news conference Friday that he didn’t expect Israel to invade Rafah while efforts to free the hostages were ongoing.

South Africa this week asked the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top judicial body, to intervene to stop Israel’s planned advance into Rafah. But on Friday, the court declined to issue new constraints aimed at preventing such an incursion.

Instead, it said the “perilous situation” in Gaza, including in Rafah, required Israel to abide by its previous ruling last month, which included taking “all measures within its power” to prevent the crime of genocide by its forces.

Netanyahu has called the charge that Israel has engaged in genocide “false” and “outrageous.”

Israeli officials have insisted that an incursion into Rafah is needed to destroy tunnels between Egypt and Gaza and to try to root out Palestinian militants there. But the Israelis have not yet presented a plan to evacuate civilians as the U.S., Israel’s closest ally, has demanded.

Many civilians sheltering in Rafah have already moved multiple times as Israel’s military campaign has pushed farther south, and some have said their homes north of the city have been destroyed and they have grown tired of repeatedly relocating.

“If they want to come here — amid all these people — there will be massacres,” said Khalil el-Halabi, 70, one of the many displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza who have sought shelter in Rafah.

Some displaced Palestinians have now moved back north toward Deir al Balah in central Gaza, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator.

People in Rafah have grown so desperate for food that they are stopping aid trucks and eating what they manage to get on the spot, according to the United Nations.

Ahmad al-Ghazaly, 26, another displaced Palestinian in Rafah, said he was sheltering in a tent with his parents, both of whom he said had chronic illnesses. He said that he hoped to get permits for both of them to leave for Egypt via the Rafah border crossing, but that the process had become even more difficult and costly in recent weeks.

“It’s been four months in which we’ve barely slept, eaten, showered, and there’s constant bombardment,” al-Ghazaly said. “We’re living in conditions, I’m sorry to say, that are barely better than those of animals.”

As the Israeli invasion of Rafah looms, neighboring Egypt has grown increasingly concerned that an Israeli operation in the city could send Palestinian refugees streaming into its territory. Egypt has warned Israel of “dire consequences” should Israeli forces embark on a ground operation in Rafah.

But Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, tried to assuage those concerns Friday, saying Israel had “no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians to Egypt.”

Israel and Egypt have had a decadeslong peace treaty that is a cornerstone of stability in the Middle East.

In recent weeks, Egypt has reinforced the border with Gaza in what some analysts have seen as a response to fears of an influx of Palestinians pouring in. A contractor and an engineer told The New York Times recently that they had received a government commission to build a concrete wall 5 meters high (about 16 feet) to close off a 5-kilometer-square plot of land on the Egyptian side of the Gaza border in Rafah.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry of Egypt said his country strongly opposed any attempt to expel Palestinians to Egyptian territory and did not intend to provide “safe areas” for Palestinian refugees. But if such a situation arose, he added, the Egyptian authorities would act with “the humanity that is necessary” and provide “support to innocent civilians.”

Netanyahu says Palestinians could evacuate Rafah for the north

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says there is “a lot of space” north of Rafah for Palestinians to flee if Israel pushes forward with military operations there. But most Palestinians in Rafah say they came from areas that were evacuated in the north.

Israel vows to 'finish the job' in Gaza as War Cabinet member threatens a Ramadan deadline for Rafah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday brushed off growing calls to halt the military offensive in Gaza, vowing to “finish the job” as a member of his War Cabinet threatened to invade the southern city of Rafah if remaining Israeli hostages are not freed by the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Israel’s government has not publicly discussed a timeline for a ground offensive on Rafah, where more than half the enclave’s 2.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge. Retired general Benny Gantz, part of Netanyahu’s three-member War Cabinet, represents an influential voice but not the final word on what might lie ahead.

“If by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue to the Rafah area,” Gantz told a conference of Jewish American leaders. Ramadan, expected to begin March 10, is historically a tense time in the region.

As cease-fire negotiations struggle after signs of progress in recent weeks, Netanyahu has called demands by Gaza's ruling Hamas militant group “delusional.”

The United States, Israel's top ally, says it still hopes to broker a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, and envisions a wider resolution of the war sparked by Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.

The U.S. also says it will veto another draft U.N. resolution calling for a cease-fire, with its U.N. ambassador warning against measures that could jeopardize “the opportunity for an enduring resolution of hostilities.”

But Netanyahu opposes Palestinian statehood, which the U.S. calls a key element in a broader vision for normalization of relations between Israel and regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia. His Cabinet adopted a declaration Sunday saying Israel “categorically rejects international edicts on a permanent arrangement with the Palestinians” and opposes any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.

The international community overwhelmingly supports an independent Palestinian state as part of a future peace agreement. Netanyahu's government is filled with hard-liners who oppose Palestinian independence.

Netanyahu wants Israel to achieve “total victory” over Hamas. In response to international concern over a Rafah offensive, he has said Palestinian civilians will be evacuated. Where they will go in largely devastated Gaza is not clear.

The suggested timing for the offensive came as the World Health Organization chief said southern Gaza's main medical center, Nasser Hospital, “is not functional anymore” after Israeli forces raided it in Khan Younis last week.

Israeli strikes across Gaza continued, killing at least 18 people overnight into Sunday, according to medics and witnesses. A strike in Rafah killed six people, including a woman and three children, and another killed five in Khan Younis, the main target of the southern Gaza offensive in recent weeks. Associated Press journalists saw the bodies.

“All those who were martyred were those whom the Jews asked to move to safe places,” said a bystander after the Rafah strike, Ahmad Abu Rezeq.

In Gaza City, which suffered widespread destruction early in the war, an airstrike flattened a home, killing seven people, including three women, according to relative Sayed al-Afifi.

Israel’s military rarely comments on individual strikes and blames civilian casualties on Hamas because the militants operate in dense residential areas.

UN SAYS RAIDED HOSPITAL NO LONGER FUNCTIONS

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a WHO team was not allowed to enter Nasser Hospital on Friday or Saturday. In a post on X, he said about 200 patients remain, including 20 who need urgent referrals elsewhere.

Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said at least 200 militants surrendered at the hospital. He also claimed that Hamas in Khan Younis is defeated, and that Hamas is largely leaderless in Gaza. He gave no evidence to support the claims.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 70 medical personnel were among those arrested, along with patients, leaving 150 patients without medical care. It said Israel refused to allow patients, including newborns, to be evacuated to other hospitals.

The military says it is looking for the remains of hostages inside Nasser Hospital and does not target doctors or patients.

The Oct. 7 attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostage. Militants still hold around 130 hostages, a fourth of them believed to be dead. Most of the others were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

The war has killed at least 28,985 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. On Sunday it said 127 bodies were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours.

Around 80% of Gaza's population have been displaced, and a quarter face starvation. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority, said 123 aid trucks entered Gaza through Israel's Kerem Shalom border crossing Sunday and four trucks of cooking gas entered through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. That's well below the 500 trucks entering daily before the war.

In the occupied West Bank, a shootout erupted when Israeli forces went to arrest an armed suspect in the town of Tulkarem. The military said the suspect was killed, and a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was severely wounded. It described the target of the raid as a senior militant. The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians were killed.

The war in Gaza has threatened to ignite wider conflict in the region. The U.S. Central Command said it conducted five self-defense strikes Saturday against cruise missiles and drones in area of Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel group.

US OPPOSES A NEW CEASE-FIRE RESOLUTION

Algeria, the Arab representative on the U.N. Security Council, has circulated a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza, and rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinians.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the draft “will not be adopted" and runs counter to Washington’s efforts to end the fighting. The U.S. vetoed previous resolutions that had wide international support.

The U.S., Qatar and Egypt have spent weeks trying to broker a cease-fire and hostage release, but Qatar said Saturday the talks “have not been progressing as expected.”

Hamas has said it will not release all remaining hostages without Israel ending the war and withdrawing from Gaza. It also demands the release of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including top militants.