360,000 Palestinians displaced to areas of west central Gaza amid Israeli offensive on Rafah

Nearly 360,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the southern area of the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees announced on Monday.

“No one is staying in Rafah,” Hatem, a displaced resident of the city, told Mada Masr.

The Occupation military launched its offensive on Rafah last week, issuing orders for residents of eastern and central neighborhoods to evacuate and stationed tanks at the Rafah border crossing facility on the border with Egypt.

Residents, along with displaced people who settled in the city after fleeing northern and central Gaza in the first months of the war were forced to flee again to escape the heightened bombardment in Rafah, relocating to areas designated as “humanitarian zones” by the Israeli military in Khan Younis, Mawasi and other areas of west central Gaza.

Sheltering in newly erected tents, displaced Palestinians have limited access to food and other resources as the main border crossings in the south closed when Israel launched its offensive on Rafah. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on Sunday that “no place is safe in Gaza.”

“Most food isn't available except only a few kinds of vegetables. No meat nor chicken. That’s beside the fact that everything is super expensive. And we're running out of water right now,” said Jenin, who used to live in east Rafah and is now displaced, moving for the second time this week.

Hatem said there was no water available for displaced people erecting new tents in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, where he arrived after leaving his home in Rafah.

The Occupation military takeover of the Rafah border crossing last week effectively prevented humanitarian aid deliveries from entering the strip, following an earlier Israeli shutdown of aid entry from the Karem Abu Salem border crossing.

The military said on Sunday that it had opened a new crossing in northern Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid in coordination with the United States, while Israeli military spokesperson Avichai Adraee said it coordinated the entry of dozens of trucks loaded with flour sent by the World Food Program through the port of Ashdod after inspection. 

Journalists in Gaza confirmed to Mada Masr that around 35 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip through this new crossing in the north on Sunday, while photos published by the Israeli military showed the construction of the new crossing near the Zikim military site, adjacent to northwestern Gaza.

However, UNRWA Communications Director Julliette Touma told Mada Masr that the organization has no information about this new crossing so far.

Israeli settlers also attacked humanitarian aid trucks bound for the Gaza Strip near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Khalil in the occupied West Bank, preventing their passage and throwing the contents of one of them on the ground, the Palestinian News and Information Agency Wafa reported.

Crossings into Gaza in the south remained closed. A Palestinian official told Sky News Arabia on Monday that the Palestinian Authority was refusing to take over the management of the Rafah crossing while the Israeli military is stationed at the facility. A high-level Egyptian source also told the state-aligned Al-Qahera News on Saturday evening that Egypt refused to coordinate with Israel regarding the Rafah crossing due to the “unacceptable Israeli escalation.”

Rafah residents quoted by Reuters on Monday said Occupation bombardment on eastern Rafah was continuous, describing the area as a battlefield between resistance fighters and the Occupation military, with Israeli tanks now stationed on the Salah al-Din Road cutting through the middle of Rafah. 

Fourteen Palestinians were killed in Occupation airstrikes on Rafah’s neighborhoods on Monday. One aerial raid struck a family home in Brazil neighborhood, east Rafah, killing four people including a child, while civil defense and ambulances recovered 10 bodies from under the rubble of another house in the Salam neighborhood. Israeli drones also bombed Hamas-affiliated police cars in the city, according to Israeli outlets.