2024-02-02 18:31:54
Their last resort… Gazans fear the Israeli attack on Rafah
Israeli forces bombed the outskirts of the last refuge in the southern end of the Gaza Strip (Friday), at a time when the displaced people, who had gathered in numbers reaching hundreds of thousands in front of the border fence with Egypt, feared a new attack, while they had no place left to flee to, according to Reuters.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now homeless, crowded into Rafah. Tens of thousands have arrived in the past few days, carrying their belongings and carrying children on carts, after Israeli forces launched one of the largest attacks of the war last week to seize Khan Yunis, the main city in the south of the Strip, which lies just north of Rafah.
Imad (55 years old), a businessman and father of six children, said via a mobile chat application: “If this happens, we will have two choices: we stay and die, or we climb the wall with Egypt.”
He added: “The majority of the people of Gaza are in Rafah, which means that if tanks invade it, there will be massacres the likes of which have not happened throughout this war.”
Late on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the forces will now shift to Rafah, which along with Deir al-Balah, directly north of Khan Yunis, is among the last remaining areas that have not yet been stormed, in an attack that has been ongoing for about four months.
People fleeing the fighting in Gaza gather in a crowded street in Rafah (AFP)
Gallant added in a statement: “We are accomplishing our mission in Khan Yunis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate the terrorist elements that threaten us.”
As the only part of Gaza reached by the limited food and medical aid flowing across the border, Rafah and neighboring parts of Khan Yunis have become an area crowded with makeshift tents.
The wind and cold weather added to the misery, as the winds toppled the tents or drowned them in the rain, which turned the area into pools of mud.
Umm Badri, a mother of five children displaced from Gaza City and now living in a tent in Khan Yunis, who was contacted via telephone, said: “What should we do? We are living in such a tragedy, not just one tragedy: war, starvation, and rain.”
She continued: “We always waited for the winter season to watch the rain come down from the balcony. Our house was gone and the rain soaked the tent.”
With phone services down in almost all parts of Gaza, residents climbed a sand berm at the border fence and sat next to barbed wire, hoping to catch a signal from Egyptian mobile phone networks. Maryam Odeh was trying to send a message to her family, who were still in Khan Yunis, to tell them that she was still alive.
A Palestinian girl carries a cat in a temporary camp set up on the beach in Rafah (AFP)
“A pressure cooker full of despair.”
The United Nations says rescue workers can no longer reach the sick and wounded on the Khan Yunis battlefield, and the prospect of the fighting reaching Rafah is unthinkable.
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said (Friday) at a press briefing in Geneva: “I want to stress our deep concern about the escalation of hostilities in Khan Yunis, which has led to an increase in the number of displaced people who have sought refuge in Rafah.” During the past few days.
Laerke added: “Rafah is a pressure cooker full of despair, and we fear what will happen next.”
The war broke out in Gaza after the attack launched by Hamas militants on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.
Displaced Palestinians try to obtain Internet service on their phones via Egyptian networks near the border with Egypt in Rafah (Reuters)
Health authorities in Gaza say that the total confirmed death toll exceeds 27,000 Palestinians, including 112 who fell in the past 24 hours, while thousands of bodies remain under the rubble as a result of the Israeli attack that destroyed most of the Strip.
The mediators are awaiting the response of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, to the proposal that was formulated last week with the heads of Israeli and American intelligence and conveyed by Egypt and Qatar, for the first long truce in the war. Residents hope that this will stop the fighting before tanks enter Rafah.
Gunfire was heard briefly in Gaza (Thursday), in joy of what Arab media reported from a Qatari official that a ceasefire was near. But Qatar made clear that an agreement has not been reached yet.
The only truce that was agreed upon was only one week old in late November, when Hamas released 110 women, children and foreign hostages.
The proposal currently on the table is to stop the fighting for a much longer period, allow aid to reach the Strip and the residents of Gaza to return to their homes. A Palestinian official said that it includes a first phase lasting 40 days, during which Hamas releases the remaining civilian hostages, followed by other phases to release captured soldiers and hand over the bodies of the dead hostages.
But the two sides still have divergent views on what happens next.
Israel says that Hamas must be eliminated before it withdraws its forces from Gaza or releases detainees, while Hamas asserts that it will not sign any truce unless Israel agrees to withdraw and end the war.
Regional tension
The Middle East region is also in a state of tension regarding the possibility of the United States launching strikes on groups allied with Iran in Syria and Iraq, which could lead to further escalation after the killing of three American soldiers last Saturday in a drone strike in Jordan.
Washington confirmed that it is preparing to respond to the attack, which is the first time that its soldiers have been killed during a wave of escalating violence by groups allied with Iran across the region since the Gaza war broke out.
US President Joe Biden, who is under pressure to take a firm response without igniting a broader war with Iran, announced that he has already decided on the nature of the response, which US officials say will include strikes over several days. Tehran says it will respond.
President Ibrahim Raisi said in a televised speech: “We will not start any war, but if anyone wants to bully us, he will receive a strong response.”
Since December, a number of senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders advising the Syrian government have been killed in what are believed to be Israeli air strikes on Syria. Semi-official Iranian media reported on Friday that a Revolutionary Guard advisor was killed in another Israeli strike on Damascus.
Official Syrian media said that Syria shot down missiles launched by Israel. Israel refused to comment, which is its usual policy in this regard.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Iran had reduced the deployment of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria due to the Israeli strikes.
The Hezbollah Brigades, allied with Iran in Iraq, and which Washington accuses of responsibility for the attack on its forces in Jordan, said it would suspend military action against the United States to avoid embarrassing the Baghdad government. But the Iraqi Al-Nujaba Movement, which has also been targeted by US air strikes since the start of the Gaza war, said on Friday that it would continue to attack Americans.
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