The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees said that 360,000 Palestinians have left Rafah in the past week. Before the operation started, there were 1.3 million people living there, and most of them had already left because of the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has said that Rafah is the last place where the militant group is strong, ignoring warnings from the United States and other friends that any big attack there would be really bad for regular people. Hamas has again gathered in some of the parts of Gaza that were badly damaged by Israel’s attacks, even though Israel had said they had removed Hamas from those areas.
Aid workers are having a hard time giving out less and less food and other things to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had to leave their homes because of what Israel says is a small military action in Rafah. The two main entrances to the southern Gaza city are still closed.
On Monday, Abeer Etefa from the World Food Program said that 38 trucks of flour came through the Western Erez Crossing to northern Gaza. Israel said that the crossing will be open on Sunday.
No food has gone into the main crossings in southern Gaza for a whole week.
The border between Gaza and Egypt is closed because Israeli soldiers took control of it a week ago. The fighting in Rafah city is stopping aid groups from getting to the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, even though Israel is saying that supply trucks can come in from its side.
Over the last week, the Israeli military has increased bombing and other activities in Rafah and told people to leave some areas of the city. Israel says it is doing a small operation to find and destroy tunnels and other things that militants use near the border with Egypt.
Israeli soldiers were fighting against Palestinian fighters in Zeitoun and the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The army had already started big operations in these areas earlier in the war.
Etefa said WFP is giving out food from their last supplies in the areas of Khan Younis and Deir Balah, where many people who left Rafah have gone. In Rafah, only two groups working with WFP were still giving out food, and no bakeries were open in the city.
“She said most distributions have stopped because people had to leave their homes, move away, and no longer have enough food. ” “The situation is getting worse and we can’t keep going like this. ”
Most people in Gaza need help from humanitarian groups to get food and other things they need to live. In Gaza, about 1.1 million Palestinians are struggling with severe hunger because it’s hard to get help from Israel. Some areas in the north are even experiencing a serious famine, according to the UN.
The boss of Kuwait Hospital in Rafah said the doctors and people living nearby have been told to leave. Sohaib al-Hams said that if the hospital is evacuated, it would have very bad results.
Israel has told people in northern Gaza to leave, even though many already left at the beginning of the war.
Mahmoud Shalabi, who works for a charity in the UK, said he was told to move from Beit Lahiya to Gaza City.
“I have gone out of my house many times with my parents who are over 70 years old, my three kids and my wife,” he said. “The experience of fear and being forced to leave home is very difficult to describe. ”
The fighting started when Hamas and other fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct 7. They killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and held 250 more as hostages. Terrorists still have around 100 people as prisoners and the bodies of over 30 others, after letting go most of the others during a temporary break in fighting last year.
Israel has attacked and killed over 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. They don’t separate civilians from fighters in their count. Israel claims to have killed more than 13,000 fighters, but has not shown any proof.
Israel had a sad Memorial Day on Monday. They had ceremonies to remember the soldiers who died, including the more than 600 who were killed since Oct 7. Most of the deaths happened in the first attack.
At the beginning of the day at Mount Herzl cemetery near Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to beat Hamas.
We are committed to winning this fight. We made the enemy pay and will continue to make them pay a heavy price for their bad behavior. “We will achieve our goal of winning and bringing all our hostages back home,” he said.
On Monday at 11:00 AM, there was two minutes of silence and four fighter planes flew over Jerusalem and nearby areas. Sirens were also heard.
People who are unhappy with the country’s leaders have been protesting in the streets. They interrupted some ceremonies to show their discontent. Critics say Netanyahu is responsible for the security and intelligence mistakes that led to the attack and for not making a deal with Hamas to let the hostages go.
International talks to stop fighting and free hostages stopped last week when Israel went into Rafah. Israel said no to Hamas’ main request to stop the war and pull its forces out of the area. They think that if they do this, Hamas will take over again and do more attacks like the one on Oct 7.
Netanyahu said he will keep attacking until Israel destroys Hamas’ army and government and gets back all the hostages they took. These are the things he wants to achieve, but they haven’t happened yet.