Deadly strikes hit ‘pressure cooker’ Rafah as 100 more killed across Gaza

Palestinian Territories – AFP

Deadly strikes were reported early Saturday in the overcrowded Gaza border town of Rafah — dubbed a “pressure cooker of despair” by the UN — as international mediators readied a new push to seal a tentative deal between Israel and Hamas.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled south to Rafah since Israel’s war on Gaza began, with the former city of 200,000 now housing more than half of Gaza’s two million-plus population, according to a WHO representative.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said it was deeply concerned about the escalation of hostilities in nearby Khan Younis, which have pushed more and more people south in recent days.

“Most are living in makeshift structures, tents or out in the open,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said during a briefing in Geneva.

“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next.”

An AFP journalist in the city heard powerful explosions shortly after midnight on Saturday, with the health ministry later reporting 14 people killed in two strikes there.

The ministry said more than 100 people in total were killed across the territory overnight.

Abdulkarim Misbah, one of the many people seeking refuge in Rafah, said he had first left his home in the northern Jabalia refugee camp for Khan Younis, only to be uprooted again.

“We escaped last week from death in Khan Younis, without bringing anything with us. We didn’t find a place to stay. We slept on the streets the first two nights. The women and children slept in a mosque,” the 32-year-old father said.

The family later received a donated tent, setting it up right beside the Egyptian border.

“My four children are shivering from the cold. They feel sick and unwell all the time,” he said.

Winter storms and torrential rain lashed Gaza on Friday, with some people wearing hazmat suits left over from the Covid pandemic as protection against the harsh weather.

– Broken families –

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said Friday that an estimated 17,000 children in Gaza had been left unaccompanied or separated from their parents due to the war.

“Each one has a heartbreaking story of loss and grief,” said spokesman Jonathan Crickx.

Nearly four months of fighting have devastated the coastal strip, while an Israeli siege has resulted in dire shortages of food, water, fuel and medicines.

Image analysis released Friday by the UN’s satellite centre UNITAR based on footage collected on January 6 and 7 showed that “approximately 30 percent” of Gaza’s structures had been affected by the war.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), meanwhile, announced the deaths of three Palestinian Red Crescent workers — two on Wednesday and one on Friday — around Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis.

“Any attack on healthcare workers, ambulances, and medical facilities is unacceptable,” the IFRC said in a statement.