In the narrow crevices between the tents that fill almost every square inch of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, Palestinians are clinging to their lives amid the Israeli ground offensive.
A barefoot boy carries a pot on his head and smiles. A child carries a jerry can half his size filled with water. Men sit at half-empty tables selling canned goods. A linen tapestry hangs from each line.
The world’s eyes are on Rafah, the once-sleepy town along the Egyptian border that was considered a “safe zone” for displaced civilians to flee to, but is now likely Israel’s next target in its land offensive on the besieged strip.
Rafah has grown in recent weeks. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have scattered across the city in tents or with friends and relatives.
The approximately 1.5 million people who find refuge there – more than half of Gaza’s population – have nowhere to flee in the face of the Israeli offensive which has razed vast swathes of the urban landscape in the rest of the territory and killed more than 29,000 people.
United Nations officials warn that an attack on Rafah would be catastrophic, with more than 600,000 children at risk of attack. A shift to the city and its surrounding areas could also cause the collapse of the humanitarian aid system that is struggling to keep Gaza’s population alive. Israel’s Western allies have also expressed concern.
However, Israel asserts that it must take Rafah to ensure the destruction of Hamas and the release of Israeli hostages still held by it.
Food in Rafah, like elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, is scarce. Crowds of people crowd around a bakery, hoping for a few pitas to feed their families. Others cook their own meals in mud stoves with whatever flour they can find. A child, sitting on the shoulders of an older child, delighted in the first bite of this soft bread.
The tentless streets are filled with crowds of Palestinians scrambling to provide for their families.
The mundane rhythm of life continues in some places. A boy gets his hair cut. A girl puts on an oversized sheer pink floral dress. Women and a child avoid a large puddle near a cluster of tents.
And in a snapshot of surreal joy, the children spin on a hand-operated Ferris wheel, spinning and turning as the war – now in its fifth month – continues.
