GAZA – Israel intensified its aerial bombardment on Rafah on Wednesday evening following it said it would evacuate civilians from the city in the southern Gaza Strip and begin a comprehensive attack, despite warnings from its allies that this might cause large numbers of deaths and injuries.
Medics in the besieged Palestinian enclave said five Israeli air strikes on Rafah early on Thursday hit at least three homes, killing at least six people, including a local journalist.
Ibrahim Khreishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, expressed to Reuters yesterday, Thursday, his fears regarding what will happen in Rafah, because the alert level is very high.
He said that some are leaving and are afraid for their families, but they are not allowed to go to the north and therefore they are trapped in a very limited area.
In the seventh month of the devastating war by air and land once morest the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which runs the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces resumed bombing the northern and central areas of the Strip, as well as east of Khan Yunis in the south. Israel’s goal is to eliminate Hamas, but it is not clear how it will achieve its goal.
A United Nations spokesman said yesterday, Thursday, that a UN team in the Gaza Strip, which was inspecting the location of a sea pier and the staging area for maritime aid operations, was forced to take shelter in a shelter on Wednesday following the area was attacked.
He added that they remained there “for some time,” but there were no casualties.
Israeli government spokesman David Mincer said that the war cabinet led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held meetings “to discuss how to destroy the last remnants of the faction movement and the movement’s last strongholds in Rafah and other places.”
He declined to reveal the timing of a ground operation in Rafah or whether the Council would give the green light for the operation.
Gaza health authorities said in an update on the factions’ movement on Thursday that the war, now in its seventh month, has killed at least 34,305 Palestinians. The attack led to the widespread destruction of a large part of the densely populated and urban Strip, causing the displacement of most of its 2.3 million residents and leaving many without access to food, water, or health care.
A United Nations expert said following a visit to Jordan and Egypt that relief agencies are monitoring an increasing number of patients suffering from severe food shortages in the Strip.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, added: “What I saw here was shocking.” Patients who arrived in Egypt previously mainly presented with symptoms related to explosives or other war injuries, and an increasing number of patients have now joined them, most of them children, with chronic diseases and severe malnutrition.”
Israel has vowed to eliminate the factional movement since the attack launched by the movement across the border on October 7, and Israeli statistics say it resulted in the killing of 1,200 people and the taking of 253 hostages. The Iran-allied movement also vowed to destroy Israel.
Residents and witnesses said that the escalation of Israeli threats to invade Rafah, which is the last refuge for regarding a million displaced civilians due to the incursion of Israeli forces into the northern Gaza Strip earlier in the war, prompted some families to leave for the nearby coastal Al-Mawasi area or try to make their way to points further north.
But the number of displaced people leaving Rafah is still small, with many confused regarding where to go, saying their experience over the past 200 days of war has taught them that no place is truly safe.
Muhammad Nasser (34 years old), a father of three children, said that he left Rafah two weeks ago and now lives in a shelter in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza to avoid being surprised by the Israeli military invasion and not being able to escape.
Nasser told Reuters via a chat application that he and his family were escaping from one trap to another, searching for places that Israel says were safe before they were bombed once more, describing what was happening as a game of mouse trap.
He added that they are trying to adapt to the new reality and hope to see a change for the better, despite the doubts they have regarding that.
Shaina Law, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said there appeared to be fewer people in Rafah, which borders Egypt.
She explained that teams on the ground reported that residents expected an invasion following the end of the Jewish Passover holiday on April 30.
A senior Israeli military official said on Wednesday that Israel is preparing to evacuate civilians before the attack, and that it has purchased 40,000 tents, each of which can accommodate between 10 and 12 people, for the Palestinians who will be transported from Rafah.
Satellite images of the Al-Mawasi area located between Rafah, Khan Yunis and the sea, an area of sandy beaches and fields extending regarding five kilometers in length and only regarding three kilometers in width, showed the establishment of large concentrations of camps during the past two weeks.
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2024-04-26 19:09:58
