Israel has launched an attack on Rafah city in the southern part of Gaza, Palestine. As a result, 300,000 people have already fled the city. These people took refuge here from other parts of Gaza due to the Israeli occupation.
Nearly 300,000 people have fled Rafah in the past week, the main UN aid agency for Palestinians in Gaza said on Sunday. The city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip has become a haven for more than a million displaced people over the past seven months, fleeing Israeli aggression.
The United Nations agency, known as UNRWA, made the announcement on social media hours after the Israeli government issued new evacuation orders to Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza. Fears have deepened in recent days as the Israeli military prepares to attack the city despite international warnings.
The international community, including the United States, has been opposing major attacks on Rafah, which has basically become a refuge for millions of Palestinians. The World Food Program echoed those warnings on Sunday, while also expressing concern about civilian displacement and saying a full-scale attack on Rafah would be “catastrophic”.
The organization wrote on social media, “Rafa families are on the move again, looking for shelter, food, water.”
Workers from the international charity Doctors Without Borders are working in Gaza during the war. The agency also said on social media that it had started referring the last 22 patients at the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital to other medical facilities because they “can no longer guarantee their safety.”
Gaza’s health care system is on the verge of collapse, and one of the three major hospitals in Rafah city, which was partially functional before the Israeli military operation, has already closed.
Meanwhile, intense bombing and fighting has been going on around Rafa since last Monday. Israeli troops initially took control of the Rafah crossing with Egypt early last week and later closed it. This also stops the flow of aid. Local health officials say dozens of people have since been killed in Israeli strikes on the town of Rafah.
In this situation, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Rafah and a part of northern Gaza last Saturday, ordering people to flee.
