Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into the small southern Gaza border city of Rafah are being forced to contemplate being displaced once more as an Israeli offensive looms.
Those who fled to the border city, almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, face a terrifying choice: stay in overcrowded Rafah – once home to 280,000 people – and wait for the attack, or risk moving north through an area of continued fighting.
Large areas are occupied by tented encampments, which have encroached even on some of Rafah’s cemeteries. Aid officials have described the city as a “pressure cooker of despair”, warning that a full-scale Israeli offensive on an area so overcrowded could cause large-scale loss of civilian life, and could be a war crime.
While Rafah has been hit by Israeli strikes throughout the war, the bombing and Israeli troops have been edging ever closer to the city, whose southern boundary is delineated by the mainly closed border with Egypt.
Fears of an imminent Israeli assault have been increased by strikes closer to Rafah, including by Israeli gunboats that shelled the western road into the city on Wednesday.
Describing the mood this week, Raed al-Nims, the media director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said: “Everyone is afraid of the expanding of the ground operation in Rafah.”
The growing sense of desperation has been underlined by the fact that some of the few who have tried to leave the city for areas such as Nuseirat, central Gaza, in recent days have lost contact with family members.
Most families who spoke to the Guardian this week indicated they would wait for an Israeli military evacuation order in the hope it would designate a safe exit route in the event of a full-scale assault.
With increasing food shortages, disease and insanitary conditions, the threatened offensive has plunged many into despair. Some said their children were too frightened to sleep because of the encroaching fighting.
“Yes, I’ll move if they want to invade Rafah,” said Moamen Jarad, 25, who fled to the city earlier in the war from northern Gaza, one of the first areas attacked during the Israeli ground offensive. “I’m originally from Beit Lahiya. I’m thinking of moving north, if possible. Israel will let us know where we should go and may name some specific areas to move to.”
Majed Rezeq, 46, described the challenge facing everyone considering leaving. “I’d go to our house in northern Gaza. All of my family wants to return but there is no way. It’s totally blocked. If there was a way to go to another, safer area, either through central Gaza or Khan Younis, I’d go. But it’s dangerous. It’s more dangerous than here.”
Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said on Wednesday that he was “especially alarmed” by reports that the Israeli military intended to focus next on Rafah. “Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,” he said.
Israeli officials have said that before any ground offensive in Rafah the military would coordinate with Egypt, which is becoming increasingly alarmed at the prospect of an offensive on its border, and would seek ways of evacuating most of the displaced people northward.
However, it is not clear how, given the situation on the ground. More than half of Gaza is under Israeli military evacuation orders, while fighting and widespread destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure is continuing.
Israel has said fighting will continue in parts of northern Gaza after Hamas fighters and officials reappeared there in the past fortnight. The IDF had earlier said it had completed its operations in the north and drawn down troops.
The fear that Israel could strike Rafah next stems from a series of comments by senior Israeli officials, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Yoav Gallant. Israel has continued to struggle to achieve its war aims against Hamas, despite the deaths of more than 27,000 Palestinians.
While Israel has repeatedly claimed to have devastated Hamas, the war has dragged on, with no evidence that either the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, or the leader of its military wing, Mohammed Deif, have been killed. Israel has rescued just one hostage, with others released through negotiations with Hamas.
Israel now says it believes Sinwar and other senior Hamas leaders are hiding in the far south around Rafah. “We will also reach the places where we have not yet fought in the centre of the Gaza Strip and in the south, and especially to the last remaining of Hamas [in] Rafah,” Gallant said. “Every terrorist hiding in Rafah should know that his end will be like those in Khan Younis and Gaza.”
In televised comments, Gallant said Israel believed Sinwar was in effect no longer in command of Hamas. “He is not leading the forces; he is busy with his own personal survival. He became, instead of the head of Hamas, a fugitive terrorist.”
An Israel assault on Rafah would also have a secondary purpose, according to recent remarks by officials who have suggested that Israel wants to control the so-called Philadelphi route, a narrow, sandy road along the border with Egypt.
Israel sees control of the 14km route as key to preventing Hamas smuggling arms through tunnels into Gaza from Egypt. It would also allow Israel to control all access to Gaza.
Egypt strongly rejects that ambition, pointing out that the route was designated as a demilitarised zone under the terms of the 2005 Philadelphi accord between it and Israel, agreed after Israel withdrew from Gaza. That superseded an arrangement allowing Israel to patrol the route after the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
All of this has led to growing fears about the consequences of an Israeli attack on Rafah. The UN has emphasised the potential for a “large-scale” loss of civilian life.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, emphasised that under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas “may constitute war crimes”. He said at a briefing in Geneva: “To be clear, intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that.”
Ashraf, 40, another displaced Palestinian in Rafah, said: “We’ll wait for the order from Israel to tell us where to go. Our last stop is Rafah. We are not going to anywhere else out of Gaza Strip. We either go home to our houses, or we die here.”
