Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

3-minute read
10 May 2024 | 16:20 CAT

Image/ Al Jazeera

If we listen to world leaders, we could be lulled into believing that Rafah has been a place of safety. But this city, nestled in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, has been on the threshold of terror since Israel launched its genocidal assault on October 7.

Instead of safety, Palestinians who fled south found death once again raining on them.

The Israeli army has ordered tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave Rafah amid growing fears of a ground assault on the southern Gaza city, where 1.4 million people displaced by Israel’s war on Gaza have sought shelter.

An Israeli military spokesperson told journalists about 100,000 people in eastern Rafah should evacuate to “an expanded humanitarian area” on the coast.

The order came on Monday, shortly before Hamas approved a proposal for a ceasefire in the seven-month Gaza war put forward by mediators Qatar and Egypt.

Late Monday evening, the Israeli army escalated its bombardment of the city.

Rafah is the main refuge for displaced Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict. Refugee and Migrant Rights Researcher at Human Rights Watch Nadia Hardman elaborates on the humanitarian situation. Hardman has spoken to Palestinians who have been displaced multiple times. 

“It is a horrifying situation. Humanitarians are consistently telling the world that they are not equipped to deal with this number of people especially under a blockade and the restrictions as well as humanitarian aid,” says Hardman. 

Hardman explains, “people are desperate, most of the time grieving the loss loved ones, starving and desperately trying to get clean water and enough food to survive the day.” 

Hardman pointed out that the Palestinians now face another evacuation order, and sentimental to all of this, there is nowhere safe to evacuate people to. 

“Having been displaced so many times and living in a tent and just so tired and miserable, Palestinians could not contemplate the idea to plan a next move, to where? Is always the continuous question from the Palestinian people,” says Hardman. 

Meanwhile, even without a full-scale Israeli ground invasion, Rafah’s medical facilities have been overwhelmed.

Medics say more than a million people sheltering in the southern Gaza city are at risk of being deprived of healthcare after the Israeli military began a “limited” operation against Hamas on its eastern outskirts on Monday.

The largest of the city’s three partially functioning hospitals, Abu Youssef al-Najjar, had to be hastily abandoned the following day after staff received an evacuation order and there was fighting nearby.

Listen to the full interview on Your World Today with Mufti Yusuf Moosagie.