Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had set a date for an assault on Rafah, after far-right allies warned that his premiership would not be tenable if he did not launch an attack on the town in southern Gaza, Paralel.Az reports citing The Financial Times.

The US has in recent weeks put increasingly public pressure on Netanyahu not to carry out a major operation in Rafah, which has become Hamas’s last stronghold, but which is also sheltering more than 1mn people displaced by fighting elsewhere in the devastated enclave.

However, in a statement late on Monday, Netanyahu insisted that Israeli forces would enter the city. “Victory requires entering Rafah and eliminating the terrorist battalions there,” he said.

“This will happen; there is a date.”