Exodus from Rafah as Israel ramps up strikes on south Gaza
Al Jazeera
UN aid chief says notion that people in Gaza could evacuate to a safe place is an ‘illusion’.
The Israeli military has launched a new wave of air raids and artillery fire in southern Gaza, forcing Palestinians to flee overcrowded Rafah in advance of a feared ground invasion that world leaders have condemned.
The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, said on Thursday that people, already displaced several times in the four-month conflict, were heading to Deir el-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Rafah was a designated “safe zone” and the last refuge for Palestinians forced to escape Israel’s attacks by land, air and sea across the rest of the enclave. An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians found some measure of security there in tents and makeshift shelters.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned that Palestinians in Rafah might be forced into Egypt if Israel launches its planned military operation against the border city.
“The possibility of a military operation in Rafah, with the possibility of the [border] crossing closing down, with the possibility of spillover … a sort of Egyptian nightmare … is one that is right before our eyes,” Griffiths told diplomats at the UN in Geneva on Thursday.
