{"id":23308,"date":"2024-02-08T00:25:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T00:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/08\/millions-of-palestinians-are-trapped-in-rafah-as-israeli-troops-approach-theres-nowhere-left-to-run\/"},"modified":"2024-02-08T00:25:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T00:25:31","slug":"millions-of-palestinians-are-trapped-in-rafah-as-israeli-troops-approach-theres-nowhere-left-to-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/2024\/02\/08\/millions-of-palestinians-are-trapped-in-rafah-as-israeli-troops-approach-theres-nowhere-left-to-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Millions of Palestinians are trapped in Rafah. As Israeli troops approach, there\u2019s nowhere left to run"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Displaced Palestinians crowded into tents in Rafah are waiting with dread for an anticipated Israeli ground assault on the city \u2013 with nowhere left to flee once troops move in. <\/p>\n

One million people are estimated to be crammed into a tent city in the southern Gaza location, with satellite images showing that the makeshift shelter is rapidly expanding. <\/p>\n

Others are packed into houses in the city, where rocket attacks are already commonplace. <\/p>\n

He said conditions in Rafah are \u201cvery difficult,\u201d describing a \u201clarge number of people, chaos, and high prices.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Rafah\u2019s makeshift tent city<\/span> Satellite image \u00a92024 Maxar Technologies<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Dahman, like countless others, found himself in the city after a \u201cvery arduous\u201d journey through the besieged enclave. Rafah was the last refuge for Palestinians trekking south to avoid Israel\u2019s air and ground campaigns, following orders from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials for Palestinians to leave Gaza City, and then Khan Younis, as their ground campaign moved further south. <\/p>\n

Rafah has experienced aerial assaults from Israeli forces for months, but the new anticipated ground campaign brings with it heightened fears of a bloodbath. <\/p>\n

Those trapped in the city have no remaining escape route. The city borders Egypt, and the crossing into that country has been closed for months. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe bombing is getting closer slowly in Rafah,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do not know where we will go after Rafah.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018Everyone is afraid\u2019<\/h2>\n

Israeli leaders have set their sights on Rafah in recent days, claiming the city is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and that the militant group\u2019s leadership, including Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, is \u201con the run.\u201d <\/p>\n

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said the military would \u201csoon achieve its goals\u201d as it pushed into Rafah. <\/p>\n

Gallant claimed in a televised briefing that Sinwar had no contact with his fighters and was forced to flee from one hideout to another with the IDF in close pursuit. \u201cHe is not leading the forces; he is busy with his own personal survival. He became, instead of the head of Hamas, a fugitive terrorist,\u201d Gallant said. <\/p>\n

But the top commander in charge of Israel\u2019s military operation in southern Gaza has said that there is no plan in place yet for how to minimize civilian deaths in Rafah. <\/p>\n

Brig. Gen.\u00a0Dan Goldfuss, who oversees\u00a0the Israel Defense Forces\u2019\u00a098th Division, said on Sunday he would\u00a0work on such a \u201cif and when\u201d he receives the order to maneuver his forces into the area,\u00a0and that as of Sunday, the order had not been issued yet. <\/p>\n

For the more than one million Palestinians in the southern city, the expected push into Rafah is causing alarm and fear. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is afraid of the expanding of the ground operation in Rafah,\u201d Raed Al-Nims, Media Director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said on Monday. <\/p>\n

More than half of the estimated more than 2 million people in Gaza are seeking refuge in the Rafah area, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA said Monday that refugees facing acute shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine are still pouring into Rafah as fighting worsens nearby. <\/p>\n

\u201cElectricity is almost non-existent,\u201d he added, a fact which makes it difficult for Palestinians to see communications regarding the IDF\u2019s approach. \u201cWe charge our phones using solar energy which is available at our friend\u2019s house in Rafah,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no phone signal except on the Israeli and Egyptian networks.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dahman and his family left Gaza City in mid-October, days after Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks on Israel sparked an IDF bombardment on the city. In November, they went to Khan Younis, before again being uprooted in December and heading to Rafah. <\/p>\n

A similar journey was made by Youssef Abu Kwaik, a 23-year-old displaced Palestinian who left Khan Younis for Rafah around three months ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs for medical supplies, they are completely non-existent,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s humanitarian office has issued regular warnings about the situation on the ground, calling the city a \u201cpressure cooker\u201d last week. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent days, thousands of Palestinians have continued to flee to the south, which is already hosting over half the Gaza\u2019s population of some 2.3 million people. Most are living in makeshift structures, tents or out in the open,\u201d a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told a media briefing. <\/p>\n

\u201cRafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Displaced Palestinians crowded into tents in Rafah are waiting with dread for an anticipated…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":23309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketmakersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}