Thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah as a result of Israel’s latest attacks [Getty]
Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces pressed on with a brutal attack on the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced “security zone” they intend to seize.
A day after declaring their intention to “dissect” the devastated Gaza Strip, Israeli forces pushed into Rafah, which had served as a last refuge for millions of people fleeing other areas of Gaza for much of the war.
Gaza’s health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City in the north.
Rafah “is gone, it is being wiped out,” a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from there to neighbouring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.
“They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property,” said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.
The assault to capture Rafah is a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.
Also in southern Gaza, at least 23 Palestinians were killed in a wave of Israeli attacks on Khan Younis on Thursday morning, some of which hit a displacement camp that Israel had previously labelled a “humanitarian zone”.
Adel Abu Fakher, a refugee checked the damage to his tent: “There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep,” he told Reuters.
In Shejaia in the north, one of the districts where Israel has ordered the population to leave, hundreds of residents streamed out on Thursday, some carrying their belongings as they walked, others on donkey carts and bikes or in vans.
“I want to die. Let them kill us and free us from this life. We’re not living, we’re dead,” said Umm Aaed Bardaa.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, said troops were taking an area he called the “Morag Axis”, a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement between Rafah and Khan Younis.
Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered by Israel to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.
They fear Israel’s intention is to ethnically cleanse those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless while Israel seizes some of Gaza’s last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.
Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total siege on all goods for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organisations call a humanitarian catastrophe.
UN alarmed over killing of medical workers
On Wednesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed alarm over Israel’s execution-style killings of 15 aid workers, who were found buried in a shallow grave near their Red Crescent vehicles in March.
“The secretary-general is shocked by the attacks of the Israeli army on a medical and emergency convoy on March 23 resulting in the killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian workers in Gaza,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a briefing Wednesday.
Israel’s military said on Thursday it was conducting an investigation. The military claimed troops fired on the cars believing they carried fighters.
Speaking after a mission to Gaza uncovered the mass grave, Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories, said “it was shocking” to see medical workers “still in their uniforms, still wearing gloves, killed while trying to save lives”.
In Rafah, residents said most of the local population had followed Israel’s order to leave, as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there. But a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the two cities.
Movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near the so-called Morag axis was also limited by bombardment.
“Others stayed because they don’t know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained,” said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.
At least 50,523 people have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 2023. 1,163 of these were killed after Israel broke the ceasefire on March. Thousands of uncounted victims are believed to be trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings and homes.
(Reuters and The New Arab Staff)
