‘Where can we go?’ ask Rafah residents as Israel orders evacuation

Rafah, Occupied Palestinian Territories — AFP

Palestinians in Rafah have voiced despair as Israel dropped flyers ordering them to evacuate ahead of a long-threatened ground invasion.Palestine, Gaza, Rafah, Israel, safe zone, displaced people

Israel’s army said it was instructing Palestinian families in eastern Rafah to flee in preparation for an expected ground assault on the city near Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Thousands of displaced people packed up their things to move yet again, authorities in besieged Gaza said. Israeli airstrikes were already targeting areas in eastern Rafah.

Residents of Rafah said they emerged after a terrifying night of numerous air strikes on Rafah to find flyers falling from the sky telling them to “evacuate immediately”.

“The army is working with intensive power against the ‘terrorist’ forces near you,” read a flyer circulated in eastern Rafah.

“For your safety, the IDF (Israeli military) tells you to evacuate immediately towards the expanded humanitarian zone of al-Mawasi,” it said, with a map indicating the location to the north of Rafah.

An Israeli military spokesman said the plan was initially for “around 100,000 people” to move.

About 1.2 million people are currently sheltering in Rafah, according to the World Health Organisation, most having fled there during Israel’s brutal seven-month war on the besieged territory.

– ‘Very scared’ –

Rafah resident Ammar Mohammad Abu Assem said that people had also been receiving calls “telling us to evacuate”.

He slammed the calls as “foolish talk” after Gaza authorities said strikes on Rafah overnight and Monday morning killed at least 26 people.

“After they bomb, they tell us to evacuate?” he said.

Eyewitnesses described high levels of anxiety and confusion as people began moving from the eastern areas of Rafah, moving their belongings by foot and in overflowing trucks, cars, and donkey-drawn carts.

“We are very scared and afraid because it’s not easy to move from one place to another, from displacement to displacement,” said Hanah Saleh, 40, who had already been displaced from Tal Al-Zaatar in northern Gaza to Rafah.

“We do not know where to go,” Um Ahmed Fasef said, adding that “this is the third time I have been displaced” since the war began.

Amid pouring rain, some of those sheltering in Rafah said they had begun packing up their things from the densely packed tents and preparing to leave even before Israel’s directive arrived.

“Whatever happens, my tent is ready,” a resident said.

– ‘Where can we go?’

Israel’s army has said the area where people are being asked to go had been equipped with field hospitals, tents and a waterline, while additional food and medical supplies had been stored there.

Contrary to Israeli claims, aid groups and displaced people  warned that the area they are expected to leave for was already overcrowded, leaving little room for new arrivals.

Osama Al-Kahlout, of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said that the areas designated for evacuation currently shelter some 250,000 people, many of whom have already been displaced from other areas in the Gaza Strip.

Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar, 36, said he and 12 family members were in the designated evacuation area.

Jazar and his family did not know what to do, he said, because the “humanitarian zone” they were told to head for “does not have enough room for us to make tents because they are (already) full of displaced people”.

“Where can we go? We do not know.”

The Israeli military spokesman told reporters that the evacuation “is part of our plans to dismantle Hamas … we had a violent reminder of their presence and their operational abilities in Rafah yesterday”.

On Sunday, four Israeli occupation soldiers were killed and others wounded, the army said, when a barrage of small rockets was fired from an area adjacent to Rafah towards the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza.

– ‘No credible humanitarian plan’ –

International aid organisations have voiced alarm at the expected invasion of Rafah.

“From the humanitarian perspective, no credible humanitarian plan for an attack on Rafah exists,” said Bushra Khalidi, advocacy director for Oxfam in the Palestinian territories.

Israel’s genocidal offensive on Gaza, purportedly aimed at ‘destroying Hamas’, has killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and displaced over 85% of the population.