The Israeli army has ordered residents of more areas of eastern and central Rafah to evacuate as it expands its offensive in the southernmost corner of the Gaza Strip, moving to tens of thousands of Palestinians again.
Around 150,000 Palestinians, many of whom have been repeatedly displaced, have now fled Rafah, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Saturday. Israel estimates the figure at around 300,000.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said: “Israeli authorities dropped leaflets and made phone calls demanding more evacuation orders. They are now ordering the population to flee the central areas of Rafah, and not just the eastern parts, where fighting is now raging.
Earlier on Saturday, evacuation orders were issued for Shaboura and the surrounding area of Kuwait Specialist Hospital, Abu Azzoum said, adding that “people are advised to flee as these areas will become a disaster zone in the future.” military operations for the Israeli army. The situation is completely disastrous.”
Saheb al-Hams, director of Rafah Hospital, confirmed that the expanded evacuation order included the Kuwaiti hospital in the city of Rafah, where countless patients and injured people are being treated.
“There is no other place for patients and the injured to go than this hospital,” al-Hams said in a video message obtained by Tel Aviv Tribune, pleading for “immediate international protection” for the facility. .
Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli military said in a statement that “around 300,000 Gazans” had moved from the eastern part of Rafah to al-Mawasi since the order was issued on Monday.
Israel claims that al-Mawasi, on Gaza’s west coast, is a “safe humanitarian zone.” But aid groups and displaced Palestinians say tens of thousands of people are crowded into the area and face severe shortages of food and water, as well as periodic bombardments.
“They told us that these areas were not threatened and that they were safe. But it turned out that this area is dangerous,” Ahmad Abu Nahil, a displaced Gaza resident, told Tel Aviv Tribune as his family fled Rafah.
Raed al-Fayomi, another displaced resident, also described the situation as very dangerous.
“We couldn’t sleep at night because of the artillery bombardments and rockets. The situation is very difficult and food is scarce.
Georgios Petropoulos, an official with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Rafah, told the Associated Press news agency that aid workers did not have supplies to help them settle into new sites and to welcome tens of thousands of new people. from Rafah.
“We just don’t have tents, we don’t have blankets, we don’t have bedding, we don’t have any of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system,” he said. he declared.
The Israeli military said what it called a “temporary evacuation” was being communicated to people through leaflets, text messages, phone calls and broadcasts in Arabic. But it’s unclear how many people received the order.
The army initially ordered the evacuation of eastern Rafah on Monday as it took control of the crossing with the Egyptian border ahead of its long-threatened ground attack on the city where around 1.4 million people were sheltering displaced.
Israeli tanks captured the main road separating the eastern and western sections of Rafah on Friday, encircling the eastern part of the city.
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 34,971 people have been killed and 78,641 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel following the October 7 Hamas attacks stands at 1,139 and dozens remain held captive.
