Palestinians prepare to flee Rafah
by Nidal al-Mughrabi
The Israeli army on Monday intensified its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, where it said it defeated Hamas several months ago, while carrying out operations on the outskirts of Rafah, in the south of the enclave. Palestinian.
This fighting, the most intense in weeks, has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee again, raising fears of a deterioration of the already catastrophic humanitarian situation.
Israel describes its return to the northern Gaza Strip, where the country withdrew most of its troops five months ago, as a planned “cleansing” phase aimed at preventing fighters from returning.
For Palestinians, this illustrates the impossibility for Israel to achieve its military objective of annihilating Hamas.
In Jabalia, Israeli tanks attempted to advance towards the center of the refugee camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip. According to residents who fled, tank shells hit the center of the camp and airstrikes destroyed several homes.
“We don’t know where to go. We have been moved from one place to another (…) We are running in the streets,” said a woman who did not wish to give her name.
Israel marked Remembrance Day on Monday, paying tribute to fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism since the proclamation of the Jewish state on May 14, 1948.
It is dedicated this year to the 1,200 Israelis killed during the Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel as well as to the Israeli soldiers who died since the start of the offensive in the Gaza Strip.
At a ceremony in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the war against Hamas was a battle to preserve the “existence, freedom, security and prosperity” of Israel.
“Our war of independence is not over, it continues today,” he said.
LEAVE RAFAH
The death toll from the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip now stands at at least 35,000, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which warned on Monday of a risk of collapse of the medical system due to a shortage of fuel to power generators and ambulances.
Local authorities say they have so far found the bodies of 20 Palestinians killed in overnight airstrikes on Jabalia, while dozens more were injured.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israel intensified its aerial and ground bombardment of areas east of the city.
Israeli authorities last week called on residents to leave the east of the city and recently extended the order to central neighborhoods, pushing hundreds of thousands of people to flee.
According to residents, Israeli tanks cut off the Salah ad-Din road, the main north-south axis of traffic in the Gaza Strip which crosses the eastern part of Rafah.
“The tanks have cut off the road from Salah ad-Din to the east of the city, the forces are now in the South-East, concentrating near the populated area, the situation is terrible and the sounds of explosions are not heard. “never stop,” said Bassam, 57, a resident of the Chaboura neighborhood in Rafah.
“People continue to leave Rafah, even those far near the western areas, because no place seems safe at the moment and also because people do not want to escape at the last minute in case of sudden tank incursions ” he told Reuters via a messaging app.
UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, estimates that around 360,000 people have fled the southern city of the enclave since the Israeli army issued its first evacuation order.
“PRECISE OPERATION”
Israeli operations in Rafah worry the international community and in particular the United States, Israel’s main allies, which suspended their arms deliveries for the first time since the start of the conflict.
Washington asks the Israeli government not to carry out an assault on Rafah without a precise plan to preserve the civilian population.
On Monday, the office of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said it had taken stock of the situation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the “specific operation” underway in Rafah.
The armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, said its fighters were engaged in exchanges of fire with Israeli forces in one of the streets east of Rafah as well as in the east of Jabalia.
In Israel, the army repeatedly sounded sirens in areas near the Gaza Strip, warning of possible cross-border fire from Palestinian rockets and mortars.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, with contributions from Dan Williams and Tala Ramadan; writing by Lincoln Feast and Sharon Singleton; Blandine Hénault for the French version, editing by Kate Entringer)