Eyewitnesses: Israeli forces abduct, execute Palestinians fleeing Rafah via designated evacuation routes

Raeda Ahmed was one of many Palestinians displaced from Tal al-Sultan in western Rafah this week. Between bullets flying at street level, she and her family fled as the Israeli military forced civilians to take specific evacuation routes policed by a newly erected checkpoint. It was at that checkpoint that they took her husband. She has heard no word of him since.

Ahmed is one of several eyewitnesses who described to Mada Masr the Israeli military’s use of arrests and live-fire from drones and artillery to abduct and, in some instances that others described to Mada Masr, to execute members of displaced families as they travelled through the checkpoint and along the road from Rafah to Mawasi in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military spokesperson ordered people in the area to leave on Sunday, while Occupation forces were striking neighborhoods in the city, forcing hundreds to leave their homes and flee the oncoming ground invasion.

When airstrikes and artillery shelling on the area intensified, Ahmed and her family left their home to flee northwest, she told Mada Masr.

"Later, we learned from other displaced people that Israeli forces had set a specific route for us to go there,” she explained. Displaced people were ordered to travel by foot along the road formally known as Mirage Street, known among locals by the name Muharrarat Street. The area, then dubbed Gush Katif, was under Israeli control following the 1967 invasion.

"As we walked, we saw how Israeli forces blocked the road with a gate, with cameras installed on it," she added.

Several eyewitnesses, displaced from southern Gaza earlier this week, corroborated the description of a designated evacuation route along Mirage Street. 

They also said the new checkpoint splits the coastal Mawasi area (which spans Rafah and Khan Younis) in two, separating its southern half, in Rafah, from its northern, in Khan Younis.

Ahmed’s family reached the checkpoint, where she described seeing abandoned bags and personal belongings scattered along the roadside near the checkpoint, with Israeli tanks positioned all around the area.

As they approached, Israeli soldiers ordered Ahmed’s husband to stop and prevented him from advancing. She and her children were instructed to walk ahead toward the gate, where they were briefly stopped but not searched before being told to move quickly.

Her husband was not allowed to follow and she has had no news of him since, she said.

Youssef Odeh from Tal al-Sultan was also among those who fled north toward Mawasi, Khan Younis, and had to pass through the new Muharrarat checkpoint, he told Mada Masr.

Odeh’s family was allowed to pass without inspection, while he was ordered to strip off his clothes and walk toward the gate with his head lowered, he recounted.

After that, they fired several shots in his direction, missing him, before ordering him not to look back.

Two other eyewitnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Mada Masr that the Israeli checkpoint remains in place to separate Mawasi, Rafah from Mawasi, Khan Younis. Soldiers continue to search those displaced from Rafah, detaining dozens of people upon arrival at the checkpoint, they said.

Israeli forces also opened fire point-blank on displaced families as they travelled along Mirage Street, killing several, the eyewitnesses said.

Ahmed described quadcopter drones swarming overhead as she and her family fled, firing at anyone who strayed from the Israeli-designated route.

This is how the brother of Abu Ahmed was killed.

Abu Ahmed told Mada Masr that he fled his home in Tal al-Sultan with his children and younger brother on Sunday. Soldiers used loudspeakers to order them to move quickly. His brother, who was carrying several bags, fell behind.

"Because of that, Israeli forces fired shots around him before ordering him to move toward them," he said. 

"Then they began shooting toward us to force us to keep moving. They made my brother throw away his belongings and walk on toward them. I could still see him from a distance," he continued. "Then I saw them shoot at him multiple times until he collapsed. I kept looking at him, but he wasn’t moving. They executed my brother."

Another eyewitness, Hossam Mazid, described seeing many bodies lining the road as he too fled with his family. Mazid said it was clear the martyrs had been executed in the field on the spot as many of the bodies had visible gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

Gaza’s civil defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, said that the agency had received numerous testimonies of martyrs' bodies lying on the streets of western Rafah. He too said it was clear that most of the martyrs had been executed in the field.

This week’s evacuations from Rafah come as forced displacement is also ongoing in Khan Younis and northeastern Gaza. On Thursday, Israeli forces also began to order people to evacuate the crowded Gaza City, where people are hemmed in by the Occupation’s advance from the northeast. 

The new Muharrarat checkpoint serves a similar purpose as the checkpoint that the Occupation erected on the outskirts of Gaza City and used to police movement between northern and southern Gaza during the first year of its genocidal war. The route was later closed, when Occupation forces isolated and invaded northern Gaza in October 2024.

During the short-lived ceasefire that began in January, pedestrians were able to travel between north and south Gaza along the Rashid Road, which runs along the coastline, without being subjected to searches. 

When the aggression on Gaza resumed last week, the road between the north and south was once again closed to isolate the two halves of the strip from one another and surround Palestinians on all sides.