Tens of thousands displaced near border with Egypt as Israel escalates aggression on Gaza’s south

Increasing numbers of people in the Gaza Strip are heading further south to Rafah, which lies on the border with Egypt.

Since the humanitarian truce ended last week and the Occupation military escalated its assault on Gaza’s south, aid organizations have warned that tens of thousands of people are now being pushed into the southernmost areas of the strip.

In recent days, Israel has aimed intensive and continual airstrikes at residential areas of Khan Younis, a city hosting thousands of people displaced in the first weeks of the Occupation military’s onslaught on Gaza. Tens of the dead and wounded have been brought to the Nasser Hospital in people’s cars or on lorries, journalist Amr al-Tabsh told Mada Masr.

Civil defense and medical teams have been trying to reach the areas where Israel’s aggression is focused but are targeted by Israeli snipers when they do so, said Tabsh. Anything that moves in the areas where the ground incursion is taking place, in the north and east of Khan Younis, is targeted, he said.

Pushing back against the Occupation expansion in those areas, fighters for the Qassam Brigades and Al-Quds Brigades, the military wings of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups, are reportedly clashing with Israeli forces on the ground in the north and east of Khan Younis as well.

Amid the fighting in the city, Occupation military vehicles have cut central Gaza governorates off from the south, and residents have been ordered to evacuate their homes in eight Khan Younis neighborhoods. 

Israeli forces instructed them to move to Rafah, Mawasi, the Shaboura refugee camp and Tal al-Sultan in the southernmost part of Gaza, next to the border with Egypt.

“Displaced people are now either residing in UNRWA shelters or in tents they set up in designated streets and open spaces in Rafah,” said Hafez al-Masry, formerly a Khan Younis resident, speaking to Mada Masr.

Some are arriving in Rafah in carts, others in cargo vehicles carrying tens of people, said Tareq Abu Elwan, a resident of Rafah, noting that many were told to head to the concrete barriers separating Palestinian Rafah from Egyptian Rafah, along which they set up tents.

“Israeli forces’ bombardment is ongoing following another evacuation order to move people from Khan Younis into Rafah,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on Monday. “At least an additional 60,000 people were forced to move to already overcrowded UNRWA shelters, with more asking to be sheltered.”

The situation is “further strangling the humanitarian operation,” Lazzarini continued, noting that aid supplies are limited and that water is particularly scarce.

Around 1.8 million people — 80 percent of Gaza’s population — is estimated to have been displaced by Israel’s ongoing assault on the besieged coastal enclave already.

Occupation military forces have killed 16,060 Palestinians since the beginning of the ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank, said Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Keila in a Tuesday press conference.

As the fighting pushes people toward Egypt’s borders, Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Zaki noted during a speech on Monday the “uncalculated military escalation to impose a reality on the ground.” The military escalation aims to erase the Palestinian cause, Zaki said.

Egyptian officials have reaffirmed the country’s rejection of the displacement of Palestinians into Egypt and their relocation to Sinai. Rejecting the outcome shortly after the outbreak of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that the situation could turn Sinai into a base for operations against Israel and suggested that if Israel wants to displace Palestinians, it should do so in the Israeli-held Naqab Desert instead.