U.S. officials estimate that it will take weeks, at least, to complete the evacuation of civilians from Rafah in southern Gaza after the green light is given to Israel Defense Forces, Kan News reported Monday.

The population of Gaza's southernmost city has swelled to about 1.4 million after hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated south of Wadi Gaza in the early weeks of the war.

According to the report, the U.S. officials said that the evacuation plan would need to include a "flood" of humanitarian aid to the areas to which noncombatants will be evacuated, as well as the construction of temporary shelters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday approved plans for an Israeli military operation in Rafah, where Hamas' final four battalions, comprising about 3,000 fighters, are concentrated and where the senior leadership and remaining Israeli hostages are believed to be.

Netanyahu has said repeatedly that conquering Rafah is essential to winning the war against Hamas.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Monday downplayed any rift with the Biden administration over the looming Rafah operation, telling Army Radio: "It's clear we will act in Rafah. Ahead of the massive operation, we will evacuate the civilians from there. Not north — but to an area to the west."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. has yet to see Israel's plans for evacuating noncombatants from Rafah.

"We have to see a clear and implementable plan, not only to get civilians out of harm's way but also to make sure that once they are out of harm's way, they are appropriately cared for," he said.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari last week presented a plan to direct a significant number of civilians from Rafah to "humanitarian islands" in the center of the coastal enclave before the expected offensive.

Additionally, Hagari emphasized that moving the civilians to designated areas will be done in coordination with international actors.

"We need to make sure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? To humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community," Hagari said, according to the Associated Press.

The humanitarian islands would include temporary housing, food, water, and other essential supplies for evacuees.

Hagari also said that the Rafah operation will be coordinated with neighboring Egypt to ensure there is no influx of Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula.

"There are Arab countries who can help with putting up tents, or other things, in the framework of humanitarian action," Katz said.

However, in a sign of the challenges of a Rafah operation to Israel's international standing, Egypt and European leaders agreed on Sunday to reject any military offensive.

The Rafah operation "would double the humanitarian catastrophe that civilians in the Gaza Strip are suffering from, in addition to the effects of that operation on liquidating the Palestinian cause, which Egypt outright rejects," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said.

Washington has told Jerusalem that it could support a limited IDF military operation against "high value" Hamas targets in Rafah, according to a report published last week in Politico.

Politico reported that senior Biden administration officials conveyed to their Israeli counterparts that the U.S. would support targeted raids against the terrorist group's top officials above ground and in the vast tunnel system running underneath the city.

This JNS.org report was republished with permission from Jewish News Syndicate.