Palestinians flee chaos and panic in Rafah
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Tens of thousands of displaced and exhausted Palestinians have packed up their tents and other belongings from Rafah, dragging families on a new exodus.
The main hospital has shut down, leaving little care for people suffering from malnutrition, illnesses and wounds.
With fuel and other supplies cut off, aid workers are scrambling to help a population desperate after seven months of war. As the possibility of a full-scale invasion looms, Gaza’s overcrowded southernmost city has been thrown into panic and chaos by Israel’s seizure of the nearby border crossing with Egypt.
Families already uprooted by the war were uncertain where to go: to the half-destroyed city of Khan Younis, to points even farther north, or to an Israelideclared “humanitarian zone” already teeming with people with little water or supplies?
For three days, streams of people on foot or in vehicles have jammed the roads out of Rafah in a confused evacuation, their belongings piled high in cars, trucks and donkey carts. All the while, Israeli bombardment has boomed and raised palls of smoke.
“The war has caught up with us even in schools. There is no safe place at all,” said Nuzhat Jarjer. Her family packed on Wednesday to leave a United Nations school-turned-shelter in Rafah that was rapidly emptying of the hundreds who had lived there for months.
Rafah had 250,000 residents before the war. Its population had ballooned to 1.4 million as people from across Gaza fled there. Nearly every empty space was blanketed with tent camps, and families crammed into schools or homes with relatives. Like the rest of Gaza’s population, they have been largely reliant on aid groups for food and other basics of life.
On Monday, Israel issued evacuation orders for eastern parts of the city, home to 100,000 people. It then sent tanks to seize the nearby Rafah crossing with Egypt, shutting it down. At the same time, it has intensified bombardment around the city.
It remains uncertain whether Israel will launch an all-out invasion of Rafah as international efforts continue for a ceasefire. Israel has said an assault on Rafah is crucial to its goal of destroying Hamas after the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
The United States, which opposes a Rafah invasion, has said Israel has not provided a credible plan for evacuating and protecting civilians.
For now, confusion has reigned. Fearing a greater assault, Palestinians fled districts other than the eastern areas they were ordered to leave. Tens of thousands are estimated to have left, according to a UN official.
Tent camps in some parts of Rafah have vanished, springing up again further north along main roads. New camps have filled streets, cemeteries and the beach in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, 15 kilometres north, as people flowed in, said Ghada Alhaddad, who works there with the aid group Oxfam.
Others made their way to Khan Younis, much of which was destroyed in a months-long Israeli ground assault.
Suze van Meegen, head of operations for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Palestine, said the Rafah district where she is based “feels like a ghost town.” The Israeli military told those evacuating to go to a “humanitarian zone” it declared in Muwasi, a nearby rural area on the Mediterranean coast.
The zone is already packed with 450,000 people, according to the UN. Few new facilities appear to be prepared, despite the military’s announcements that tents, medical centres and food would be present.
The ground is covered in many places with sewage and solid waste, since there are few sanitation facilities, aid workers say. Clean water is lacking and dehydration is a major problem, with temperatures some days reaching 38 C.
The water quality is “horrifically bad. We tested some of the water and the fecal content is incredibly high,” said James Smith, a British doctor volunteering at the European General Hospital in Khan Younis. Acute jaundice is rampant — and probably hepatitis, too, but there’s no capabilities to test, he said.
The newly arrived struggle to find tents because aid groups have had difficulty meeting the high demand.
Before his family left Rafah to the zone, Iyad al-Masry said he had to sell the food they had received from aid groups to buy a tent for the equivalent of nearly $400.
His family set up their tent in Muwasi, smoothing the dirt ground before setting down a cradle to rock a baby in.
Al-Masri said he has been searching for water and can’t afford the three shekels — a little less than $1 US — that sellers charge for a gallon of drinking water.
“We want to eat. We are just waiting for God’s mercy,” he said.
Aid workers said Rafah’s population is in no condition to move, crippled by malnutrition and illnesses. Nick Maynard, a surgeon with Medical Aid for Palestinians who left Gaza on Monday, called it “nonsense” to move one million people in those conditions.
“They get this vicious cycle of malnutrition, infection, wounds breaking down, more infection, more malnutrition,” he said. He said two of his patients — teenage girls — who had survivable injuries died last week because of complications from malnutrition.
Other malnourished patients had weakened abdominal walls and, after surgery, the contents of their bowels leaked out onto their bodies, he said.
“When you walk around Rafah, the number of children that you see who have lost one or more of their limbs, who have been maimed, is staggering,” said Alexandra Saieh from Save The Children.
“These people cannot just pick up and relocate.”