Palestinians “crammed in Rafah starting death in the face” says UN humanitarian chief, as Israel plans another attack. Source: Justin McIntosh via Wikimedia Commons.
On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians ahead of an invasion on Gaza’s border city of Rafah.
Gazan officials said hours after Netanyahu’s evacuation statement, Israeli air strikes killed at least 44 people and left dozens, including children, injured.
People are speculating that Israel waited till Monday to release the air strikes on Rafah as they knew the world would have their eyes on the Super Bowl.
Approximately 1.4 million Palestinians have now been displaced in the 64sq km city of Rafah, whose population before the war was about 300,000.
At the beginning of the war in October, Israel ordered Palestinians in the north to move south towards Rafah as a so-called “safe zone” — an area Palestinians could flee to escape the fighting in the north.
Israel claims that there are several Hamas brigades present within Rafah, presenting this as justification for their decision to launch an attack.
“It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war of eliminating Hamas by leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” said Netanyahu.
On Tuesday, talks in Cario between Egypt, Israel, the United States, and Qatar on a possible truce in Gaza ended without a breakthrough, as world officials including — US, UK and Australia — call on Israel to hold back its planned assault on Rafah.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned that Israeli’s military operation on Rafah “could lead to a slaughter”.
“The international community has been warning against the dangerous consequences of any ground invasion in Rafah. The Government of Israel cannot continue to ignore these calls,” said Griffiths in a statement.
Aid officials say that displaced Palestinians have nowhere to go; their only option now is to flee north through a war zone or wait for Israel’s attack.
The evacuation notice does not include any further information as to where the crowded Palestinians in Rafah should flee.
“Where are you going to evacuate people to, as no place is safe across the Gaza Strip, the north is shattered, riddled with unexploded weapons, it’s pretty much unlivable,” Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said.
Nadia Hardman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch also said in a statement: “Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences.
“There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. The international community should take action to prevent further atrocities.”
Many Palestinians are plunged into despair as South Africa has requested for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to intervene, adding that the government was “gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large scale killing, harm and destruction”.
The ICJ has released no comment so far on the request.
