Nearly 360,000 people have fled Rafah, the city in the southern Gaza Strip, since the Israeli army issued its first evacuation orders a week ago, according to UN figures.
“There is nowhere for them to go. There is no security without a ceasefire,” the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) told X today.
Rafah, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them forcibly displaced by the war, is considered by Israel to be the last stronghold of Hamas.
Israeli shelling increased in the early hours of the morning in the Palestinian enclave, as Israel prepares to celebrate, “without peace”, the anniversary of its founding, which this year has been overshadowed by the war with Hamas, which has lasted more than 7 months.
In the early hours of the morning, AFP teams reported that strikes were carried out in various sectors of the Palestinian enclave where, according to the UN, there is “no safe place” for the approximately 2.4 million residents.
The bombings specifically targeted Rafa.
Heavy fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants also raged in various locations in the northern, southern and central parts of the enclave.
The UNRWA statement added that in northern Gaza, shelling and further evacuation orders have caused more displacement and “fear in thousands of families”.
Sirens for incoming rockets sounded in the morning in Israeli border towns near the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad spoke by phone with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about the situation in the Gaza Strip, according to today’s reports.
According to his office, Gallad discussed “developments in Gaza, including (the IDF’s) operations across the Palestinian enclave against terrorist hotbeds, and the precise operation in the Rafah area against the remaining Hamas factions, while at the same time it ensures the crossing” (of the Rafah border).
Blinken reiterated that the US remains opposed to a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, “where over 1 million people have taken refuge,” a State Department spokesman said.
Yesterday the head of US diplomacy said that the attack on Rafah would cause “chaos”, “anarchy” and “enormous damage” to the civilian population, without “solving the problem of Hamas”.
Defying US and European warnings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on saying a full-scale ground offensive will be launched in Rafah, which he says is the last stronghold of Hamas battalions.
Last week, the Israeli armed forces ordered civilians in the eastern Gaza Strip to leave and have since said they have been conducting “targeted” operations against the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Source: RES-MPE
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