The UN reports that during the past week, over 450,000 Palestinians have left Rafah as Israeli tanks are allegedly moving forward into the southern Gaza city.
“People are always tired, hungry, and afraid,” UNRWA, the agency that works with Palestinian refugees, issued a warning.
In the eastern part of the city, where over a million civilians have sought refuge, the Israeli military claims to be carrying out “operations against terror targets”.
Another 100,000 Palestinians have been displaced by new Israeli operations in the northern Gaza area.
Seven months after Hamas declared it had destroyed its local battalions, Israeli forces have returned to Zeitoun and Jabalia, where they believe the terrorist organization has reorganized.
Before beginning the attacks, the military urged civilians to leave eastern Rafah and Jabalia for their own protection; yet, the overall number of people who have been evacuated in recent days is close to 25% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
In response to the group’s cross-border onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in around 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of 252 persons, Israel began a military campaign to destroy Hamas.
Since then, more than 35,170 people have died in Gaza, including 82 in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry operated by Hamas in the region.
Before the Israeli assault began on May 6, Rafah’s streets were filled with tents and temporary shelters. On Tuesday morning, Unrwa shared a number of images of these empty streets.
It stated that families had left to find refuge, but it also noted that “nowhere is safe.” There is no chance other than a rapid ceasefire.”
Speaking from Rafah, Unrwa spokesperson Louise Wateridge stated on X (formerly Twitter) that families remaining in the city had “moved as far west as possible” and were camped out on beaches near the Mediterranean. She noted that it was “now a ghost town” farther inland.
The chief of the World Food Programme estimates that 300,000 people are confined in northern Gaza and are facing a “full-blown famine” as a result of a deficiency in relief delivery.
According to the IDF, approximately 100 targets in Gaza were hit by Israeli fighter planes and other aircraft throughout the course of the previous day.
It said that in an attack on what it called a “Hamas war room” inside an Unrwa-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, some fifteen members of armed organizations were slain.
Unrwa has not responded, but images have surfaced of its employees examining a demolished building next to a blue-painted school that is home to several displaced people.
Meanwhile, the Civil Defence force, which is controlled by Hamas, reported that its first responders had located 26 dead following an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a three-story family house in Nuseirat during the night. The school was not mentioned in it.