Israeli tanks have rolled into Rafah. What does this mean for the Palestinians sheltering there?

Many Palestinians packed their belongings onto trucks, donkey carts, rickshaw and other vehicles, others dismantled their tents to move elsewhere, fleeing the incursion by Israeli forces into Gaza’s southernmost town. The Israeli evacuation order left Palestinians in Rafah wrestling with having to uproot their families once again for an unknown fate, exhausted after months living in sprawling tent camps or crammed into schools or other shelters in and around the city. (AP video shot by Mohammad Jahjouh

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli tanks that entered the periphery of Rafah early Tuesday stoked global fears that an offensive on Gaza’s southernmost city could endanger the more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

The ground assault dimmed hopes of an immediate cease-fire deal that the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have spent months pushing for. In the hours before the attack began, Hamas agreed to a cease-fire proposal that the Israeli government swiftly rejected.

About 1.3 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza’s population — are jammed into Rafah and face the prospect of having to evacuate with no good plan for where to find adequate shelter.

Here’s what we know so far about the operation and evacuation plan.

WHERE WILL PALESTINIANS GO?

Now that Israel has begun ordering Palestinians to evacuate parts of Rafah, it is sending them to a patch of land whose current inhabitants say is little more than a makeshift tent camp with squalid conditions.

On Monday, Israel issued a warning to evacuate an area of eastern Rafah where approximately 100,000 Palestinians are sheltering. Israel encouraged the evacuees to move to Muwasi, an Israeli-declared safe zone that it says has expanded and will be equipped with field hospitals, shelter materials and other facilities. The United Nations and aid organizations say Muwasi is not ready to shelter the tens of thousands who might seek refuge there