Six dead as Israel blasts Palestinians’ last refuge

•Preparation for ground offensive •After Rafah, nowhere left to flee Six Palestinians died in airstrikes on Rafah in southern Gaza on Thursday as the Israeli military pounded the city in preparation for an expected ground offensive.

More than 1.5 million Palestinian civilians are crammed into the south of the enclave and the latest Israeli bombardment left terrified refugees with nowhere left to flee to.

Escalating Israeli warnings about invading Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians who fled northern Gaza earlier in the war, have persuaded some families to leave for the nearby Al-Mawasi coastal area. But many said the past 200 days of war had taught them that nowhere was genuinely safe.

“We escape from one trap into another, searching for places Israel calls safe before they bomb us there. It is like the rat and trap game,” said Mohammad Nasser, 34, a father of three who left Rafah two weeks ago.

Nasser now lives in a shelter in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza to avoid being caught by surprise by an Israeli invasion and unable to escape.

“We are trying to adapt to the new reality, hoping it will become better, but I doubt it will,” he said. Israel has threatened to launch an all-out assault on Rafah despite warnings by the US and other Western allies that there would be mass Palestinian civilian casualties. “We are afraid of what will happen in Rafah. The level of alert is very high,” said Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN. “Some are leaving, they are afraid for their families, but where can they go? They are not being allowed to go to the north and so are confined to a very small area.” Medical staff in southern Gaza said five Israeli airstrikes on Rafah on Thursday hit at least three houses and killed at least six people, including a local journalist. Israeli forces also resumed bombarding northern and central areas

of Gaza, and areas east of Khan Younis in the south.

In the north, Israel bombarded Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Zeitoun, and Hamas militants fought Israeli troops with rockets, mortar bombs and sniper fire. In nearly seven months of war Israel has killed at least 34,305 Palestinians, mainly women and children, Gaza health authorities said. It has laid waste to much of the enclave, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and leaving many with little food, water or medical care.