Quarter of Gazans displaced again as Israel attacks north, south

Rafah, Palestinian Territories – AFP

Israeli troops continued attacks across the Gaza Strip Tuesday that forced new waves of Palestinian mass displacement.

Nearly 450,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since May 6, and around 100,000 from northern Gaza, UN agencies said.

That means around a quarter of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million people have been displaced again in about one week.

Israel launched attacks not only in the crowded Rafah city but also again in northern and central Gaza months after troops and tanks first entered those areas.

US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel on Tuesday said that while Washington backed military pressure on Hamas, it was not the only way to “fully defeat” the group.

Patel reiterated Washington’s position that, without a political plan for Gaza’s future, Hamas “will keep coming back and Israel will continue to remain under threat”, leading to “this continued cycle of violence”.

Israel last week defied a chorus of warnings — including from top ally Washington which paused a shipment of bombs — and sent troops and tanks into the east of Rafah to pursue Palestinian resistance fighters.

At the same time, fighting has flared in north Gaza four months after the army said Hamas’s command structure there had been dismantled, and six months after Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had “lost control” of the Palestinian territory.

Heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported around Rafah as well as in Gaza City and Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and Nuseirat camp in the centre.

At Gaza City’s Al-Ahli hospital, the wounded and the dead arrived.

A shirtless man, his chest smeared with blood, lay on a hard cot hooked up to a monitor. Outside, several men carried a shrouded corpse and placed it in the shade of a tree blooming red flowers.

– Another 82 Palestinians killed –

More than seven months into the war, another 82 people were killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the health ministry in the territory said.

That is the highest daily toll reported by the ministry in more than two weeks.

UN chief Antonio Guterres is “appalled” by Israel’s escalating military activity in and around Rafah, a spokesman said Tuesday.

“These developments are further impeding humanitarian access and worsening an already dire situation,” Farhan Haq said.

In the Israeli city of Sderot, on the edge of northern Gaza, Israelis ran for cover inside a supermarket when sirens warned of rockets launched from Gaza.

Further north, rockets fired from Lebanon killed a civilian and wounded five soldiers, Israel’s army said.

Israel has killed at least 35,173 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Israel’s military says 272 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza campaign since ground operations began.

– Aid trucks ransacked –

Since Israeli troops moved into eastern Rafah, the aid crossing point from Egypt had remained closed and nearby Kerem Shalom crossing lacked “safe and logistically viable access”, a UN report said late on Monday.

On Tuesday Israeli police said they have opened an investigation after right-wing activists stopped and ransacked at least seven Gaza-bound aid trucks coming from Jordan, leaving food spilt on the road while famine threatens Gaza.

One of the activists, Hana Giat, said that with hostages still held by Hamas, “no humanitarian aid should go in before our hostages are out, safe in their homes”.