Gaza Strip: 110,000 Palestinians Fled Rafah After Israeli Attack

May 10, 2024 Hour: 2:38 pm

On Friday, the UN said that some 110,000 Palestinians have fled the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah in recent days following the start of the Israeli army’s recent ground offensive.

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“As shelling by Israeli forces intensifies in Rafah, forced displacement continues,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) warned on its social media account.

Some 110,000 people fled the city in search of safety, but nowhere is safe in the Strip, where living conditions are appalling, it said.

On the same social network, Unrwa spokesperson in Gaza, Louise Wateridge, also criticised the displacement of Palestinians.

Desperate families flee Rafah amid increasing hostilities. Many have been forcibly displaced multiple times.

Nowhere is safe in Gaza.

The international community has a shared responsibility to promote a humanitarian ceasefire, the release of all hostages & the delivery of aid. pic.twitter.com/X06orj4d2e

— United Nations (@UN)
May 9, 2024

“Families continued to pack up and move throughout the night, the roads were congested,” she said, releasing a video of the situation on the ground.

In recent days, tension has increased around the southern city, where more than a million people are sheltering.

Israeli troops have already this week occupied the border crossing of the same name, which for the past seven months has been the only gateway to Gaza for food, medicine and fuel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to order his troops into the town, despite a wave of international criticism of an act of force in the midst of an area densely populated by civilians, mostly women and children.

In response, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) warned Israel days ago that its entry into Rafah “will not be a walkover”.

The UN estimates that most of the displaced Palestinians in the city fled from other areas of the coastal enclave to escape bombing by Israeli troops.