Foreign journalists got to see the ghost town of Rafah

Abandoned and demolished apartment blocks, where gaping holes in the walls show how Palestinian families once lived their lives, is the sight that meets one in Rafah today.

For the first time since the start of the war, Israel has allowed foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip, where they were closely monitored by soldiers.

In Rafah, they saw a dusty and abandoned ghost town, where Israeli military vehicles stirred up dust in streets that a few months ago were filled with bustling public life.

Few civilians remain in the city, which according to the UN had around 275,000 inhabitants before the war. The rest live in fear.

Last frontier

Israel claims Rafah was the Hamas movement’s last stronghold and invaded the city to protests from the international community on May 6.

According to the Israeli army, the last four battalions of Hamas soldiers had entrenched themselves in the city, which is located on the border with Egypt.

Israel claims to have killed hundreds of Hamas soldiers since, but a large number of civilians, many of them children and women, have also been killed in the massive Israeli attacks on Rafah.

The Israeli army claims that the use of force was necessary because Hamas has hidden itself among the civilian population, and because defensive structures, tunnels and bomb traps had been established in the city.

Bomb traps

Last month, eight Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in Rafah, and several others have been killed in clashes with Hamas soldiers since then.

– In some of these tunnels, bomb traps have been placed, said Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari when he showed the foreign journalists around Rafah.

According to him, Hamas has established “a terror ecosystem” in civilian areas of Gaza, surrounded by homes and mosques.

Critical conditions

Around 1.4 million internally displaced Palestinians sought refuge in the Rafah area earlier this year following fleeing Israeli attacks further north in Gaza.

The UN estimates that there are now only around 50,000 left in the area.

Many live in a makeshift tent camp set up outside Rafah in what Israel calls a humanitarian area, where there is a critical shortage of food, clean drinking water and sanitation facilities.

Emergency stop

Attempts to bring in emergency aid have now stopped completely.

The border crossing from Egypt was closed when Israeli forces invaded, and according to the UN, little escapes through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.

Both routes are now considered too dangerous as the Israeli attacks have resulted in widespread lawlessness in Gaza where desperate Palestinians struggle to survive.

Dramatic consequences

Along the road into Rafah were burned-out trucks, and around them were empty pallets and boxes that apparently bore witness to the looting of emergency aid shipments.

The UN and aid workers have long sounded the alarm and warned of the dramatic consequences when food and other emergency aid, as well as fuel for vehicles, hospitals and treatment plants, are not allowed in.

– The hospitals lack new fuel and this might have critical consequences for operations, says Hanan Balkhy. He leads the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the region.

– Wounded people die because the ambulances are delayed due to lack of fuel, he says.

Soon defeated

Israel claims that Hamas will soon be defeated militarily in Rafah, and to prove this they drove the journalists in open cars towards the center of the city.

In the distance, however, gunfire might be heard, and a planned visit to the beach in Rafah was cancelled.

Shortly followingwards, the journalists were loaded onto cars and driven out of town once more. The dust swirling up behind them momentarily hid the massive destruction they had witnessed.