The Israeli army began an offensive against Hamas in Rafah, the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip where about 1.5 million Palestinians are refugees.
The attack on the Palestinian city that borders the border with Egypt began with dozens of Palestinians dead and two hostages –of Argentine origin- rescued.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the rescued hostages are two men named Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, who were captured by Hamas in its raid on Israeli territory on September 7. October that left 1,200 dead and about 240 kidnapped.
Residents of Rafah told the BBC that helicopters and ships are involved in the offensive, in addition to the air attack in the north and center of the city.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which governs the West Bank, denounced that Israel is committing “a massacre” in that city. Although the ANP spoke of more than 100 deaths, the Gaza Ministry of Health, which answers to Hamas, has counted so far 67.
Ahead of the offensive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to prepare to evacuate civilians.
“It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war without eliminating Hamas and leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” states a statement that Netanyahu’s office issued on Friday.
“On the contrary, it is clear that the intense activity in Rafah requires civilians to evacuate combat zones,” the statement added.
The international community warned Israel not to carry out this offensive.
The United States indicated that an invasion of Rafah would be a disaster”while the European Union and the UN expressed their concern.
For their part, humanitarian groups have said that it is not possible to evacuate all the people who have found refuge in that city.
“Humanitarian nightmare”
The city of Rafah is the largest urban center on the border with Egypt.
Most of Rafah’s population has been displaced by fighting elsewhere in Gaza and lives in tents.
Just four months ago the town had an estimated population of 280,000 inhabitants, but with the massive arrival of refugees has almost quintupledaccording to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
Rafah is. Furthermore, the only border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
Hundreds of foreigners residing in the Strip along with their families have left through the Rafah crossing and humanitarian aid has also entered for the inhabitants of the area.
On Friday, February 9, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, wrote in a social media post: “Reports of an Israeli military offensive in Rafah are alarming. Would have catastrophic consequences that would worsen the already terrible humanitarian situation and the unbearable number of civilian victims.”
For his part, UN Secretary General António Guterres warned of a “humanitarian nightmare” in the city.
His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, later added: “We are extremely concerned about the fate of civilians in Rafah… I think what is clear is that people need to be protected, but we also do not want to see any forced mass displacement of people.”
Meanwhile, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said there was “a sense of growing anxiety and panic in Rafah”.
“People he has no idea where to go after Rafah,” Lazzarini told reporters in Jerusalem.
“Any large-scale military operation among this population can only lead to an additional layer of endless tragedy unfolding.”
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Israeli military had a “special obligation, when conducting operations there or anywhere else, to ensure that take into account the protection of innocent civilian life“.
“Military operations at this time would be a disaster for those people and it is not something we would support,” he said, adding that the United States had not seen anything to suggest that Israel was going to launch a major operation in Rafah imminently.
State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel echoed Kirby’s comments: “We [Estados Unidos] “We would not support doing something like this without serious and credible planning.”
When asked by the BBC where refugees in Rafah should go in the event of an incursion, Patel said they were “legitimate questions that we think the Israelis should answer.”
Speaking in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that any “military operation that Israel undertakes must put civilians first…and that is especially true in the case of Rafah.”
“We have nowhere else to go.”
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, At least 15 people died on Friday, eight of them in Rafah, by Israeli attacks. Israel had no comment.
“If they come to Rafah, it will be the end for us, as if we were waiting for death. We have nowhere else to go,” Garda al-Kourd, a mother of two who said she had been displaced six times during the war, told the BBC.
Since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas, its army has forced the civilian population to move further and further south into the Gaza Strip.
However, the Gazans who have managed to reach Rafah They have run out of places to movesince the 41 kilometers long of the small territory have been consumed.
The city is a narrow stretch of land surrounded by Egyptian and Israeli border fences and the Mediterranean Sea.
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, told the BBC that an invasion in Rafah, which he called “the largest displaced persons camp in the world”, would be a catastrophe.
“There are people on their flimsy plastic sheets. They are fighting for food. There is no drinking water. There are epidemic diseases and now they [las fuerzas israelíes] “They want to bring a war to this place,” he said.
In Rafah today they live close to 1.5 million people in crowded shelters or outdoors on the streets or in the sands of the nearby beach.
Santosh Kumar, a doctor who left the Gaza Strip last week, said that the town is so crowded that not even ambulances can circulate on its streets.
“It is a huge prison,” Kumar said in statements to the BBC Arabic service.
The Palestinians who gather in Rafah have to wait hours for something to eat and some water, often contaminated.
Kumar says that wastewater flows uncontrollably over the surface today, becoming a source of disease for a malnourished population with almost no medicines.
Likewise, he assured that the combination of the Israeli bombings and the massive arrival of refugees has caused the city’s poor public services to collapse.
For their part, the ActionAid organization assured that some people are being forced to eat grass.
“Everyone in Gaza is now hungry and people only receive between 1.5 and 2 liters of contaminated water per day to satisfy all their needs,” added the charitable group.
According to Israeli officials, more than 1,200 people were killed during Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
More than 27,900 Palestinians have been killed and at least 67,000 injured by the counteroffensive launched by Israel, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
*With reporting by Marita Moloney, Tom Bateman, Kathryn Armstrong, Patrick Jackson and the BBC Arabic service
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