The Israeli military has launched a new wave of airstrikes and artillery fire in southern Gaza, forcing Palestinians to flee overcrowded Rafah ahead of a feared ground invasion that world leaders have condemned.
The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, said on Thursday that people, already displaced several times during the four-month conflict, were heading to Deir el-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Rafah was a designated “safe zone” and the last refuge for Palestinians forced to escape Israel's attacks by land, air and sea on the rest of the enclave. An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians found some degree of safety there in tents and makeshift shelters.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned that Palestinians in Rafah could be forced to return to Egypt if Israel launches its planned military operation against the border town.
“The possibility of a military operation in Rafah, with the possibility that [border] “The closure of the crossing, with the possibility of an overflow… a kind of Egyptian nightmare… is right before our eyes,” Griffiths told diplomats at the UN in Geneva on Thursday.
He said the idea that people in Gaza could evacuate to safety was an “wishful thinking.”
“We should all hope that friends of Israel and those who care about Israel's security will give them good advice at this time,” Griffiths added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday his goal to eradicate Hamas by all means, including a military operation in Rafah.
“We will fight until complete victory, and this includes powerful action also in Rafah after we allow civilians to leave the battle zones,” he said.
Mirjana Spoljaric, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said the absence of a clear evacuation plan, even for the sick and elderly, would take suffering to a new level.
“The suffering on both sides, the carnage we have seen since October 7, will reach unimaginable depths if operations in Rafah escalate in the way they were announced,” Spoljaric said.
As Israeli forces are also engaged in military operations in central and northern Gaza, any mass movement further north would be fraught with danger.
On Thursday, the Israeli army stormed Nasser Hospital, the main medical center in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The military described the attack as “precise and limited,” adding that it was based on “credible information” that Hamas fighters were hiding in the facilities and holding captives there. A Hamas spokesman denied the allegations, calling them “lies.”
There was heavy tank and machine gun fire as troops entered the complex after ordering the occupants to evacuate.
Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported from Rafah that Israeli forces “teared down” the hospital's southern fence on Thursday and moved into the main building, gathering “doctors and nurses inside.”
“The Israeli army prevents them from treating the many wounded. Right now, people are being attacked inside the Nasser hospital,” he stated.
On Wednesday, Israel said it had opened a safe corridor for displaced people to leave the hospital, but allowed doctors and patients to remain.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said people Israel had ordered to evacuate faced the impossible choice of staying “and becoming a potential target” or leaving “into an apocalyptic landscape” of bombing.
Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that Israel's siege of the hospital and its plans to move to Rafah are part of the “same story” and Israel has been “trying to make the life uninhabitable for the Palestinians. ”.
Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 28,663 people have been killed in Israel's attacks since the start of the war and at least 68,395 have been wounded. He said 87 Palestinians were killed and 104 wounded in the last 24 hours.
