Nearly 450,000 people flee Rafah in southern Gaza Strip in one week - UN
Kyiv • UNN
Almost 450,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in southern Gaza Strip in one week.
Over the past week, nearly 450,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the UN, as Israeli tanks reportedly move deeper into the city, UNN writes with reference to the BBC.
Details
"People are facing constant exhaustion, hunger and fear," warned the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.
The Israeli military says it is continuing "operations against terrorist targets" in the east of the city, where more than a million people have been hiding.
New Israeli operations in northern Gaza have displaced another 100,000 people, the newspaper writes.
Israeli troops returned to the areas of Zeitoun and Jabalia, where, according to the military, Hamas regrouped only five months after it announced the disbanding of the group's local battalions.
The military ordered civilians to evacuate the eastern districts of Rafah and Jabalia for their own safety before launching the offensive, but the total number of displaced people in recent days is equivalent to almost a quarter of Gaza's 2.3 million population, the newspaper said.
Families fled for safety, the report said, but added: "Nowhere is safe. An immediate ceasefire is the only hope.
Unrwa spokeswoman Louise Wateridge, who is in Rafas, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that families still in the city have "moved as far west as possible" and pitched tents on beaches along the Mediterranean coast. Further inland "is now a ghost town," she added.
To add
Israel has launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's attack on southern Israel on October 7, during which about 1,200 people were killed and another 252 taken hostage.
According to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-ruled territory, more than 35,170 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 82 in the last 24 hours.
After seven months of war in Gaza, Israel insists that victory is impossible without the capture of Rafah and the destruction of the last battalions of Hamas.
But the UN and Western powers warn that a full-scale attack could lead to massive civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe.