(CNN) — Palestinian civilians ordered by the Israeli Army to evacuate the eastern area of Rafah described the fear and desperation they feel at being uprooted from their homes and shelters, while Israeli aircraft bombard the southernmost city of Gaza.
“We left because they distributed pamphlets,” Mohammed Ghanem, a resident of eastern Rafah, told a CNN correspondent who was in the area on Monday. “They are attacking everywhere without distinguishing between children, adults, militants or non-militant. I abandoned the house I have been building for 17 years,” he added.
Ghanem and his wife pushed strollers full of belongings. “We no longer have a home. We are heading to Mawasi because there is no security with the Israelis. They are killing women and children.”
Another woman from east Rafah said: “The Israelis have sent us messages ordering us to leave. We cannot stay.”
Early Monday, the Israeli military asked some 100,000 Palestinians living in areas east of Rafah to “evacuate immediately,” telling them to move to Al-Mawasi, a coastal town near the city of Khan Younis, which, according to aid groups, it is not suitable for habitation.
In a statement, Israel’s prime minister’s office said the country’s war cabinet had “unanimously decided” to continue the Rafah operation “to exert military pressure on Hamas.”
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had taken control of the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing, a crucial entry point for humanitarian aid on the enclave’s southern border with Egypt.
“We have operational control of the area and the border crossing,” an Israeli military officer declared during a briefing with journalists.
Wael Abu Omar, spokesman for the General Authority of Borders and Crossings, told CNN that all movements and aid shipments through Rafah had stopped “after Israeli tanks captured the crossing facilities from the Palestinian side.”
Displaced Palestinians fleeing Rafah after the Israeli military told civilians to leave eastern areas of the southern Gaza city, May 6, 2024. (Credit: Ramadan Abed/Reuters)
A CNN contributor in eastern Rafah said people were terrified and in a state of panic following Monday’s evacuation announcement, which sparked a flurry of calls from world leaders, the United Nations and humanitarian groups urging Israel not to. carry out their long-threatened assault on the city as ceasefire and hostage negotiations with the militant group fail.
The measure was described as “inhumane” by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, and “more than alarming” by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The Israel Defense Forces declared this Monday that they are “carrying out targeted strikes against Hamas terrorist targets in eastern Rafah, in the southern Gaza enclave.”
Videos and images from eastern Rafah showed trucks full of people’s belongings moving through the streets, which became increasingly crowded as Monday progressed. Children were seen sitting between fuel tanks and plastic bags full of belongings, and families leaving with mattresses tied to the roof of their cars.
Faisal Barbakh, who fled on a bicycle, said he was leaving behind a lifetime of memories.
“I’m walking off into the unknown. I feel terrible. I just wish one of the people who caused this to us was walking with us,” she said.
“I have been here all my life. My family is broken into seven parts. I feel like it is the end of life. I can no longer think. I have left behind 59 years of life, all my memories, the photos of my children, the contract of my house. Only God knows how much effort I have invested in it. It is not just my feeling, it is everyone’s.
Many of those leaving eastern Rafah have been displaced multiple times before, as Israel’s focus shifted from one city to another.
“This is the fourth time I’ve been displaced. From Nuseirat to Khan Younis, then to Rafah, and now another one. I don’t know where I’m going,” one man told CNN.
The current war began on October 7, when Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 200 people hostage.
A displaced Palestinian, who fled Rafah after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of civilians, sits in a vehicle, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on May 6, 2024. (Credit: Ramadan Abed)
In the nearly seven months since then, the Israeli military bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 34,600 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and has driven more than a million Palestinians to seek refuge in Rafah, a city that , according to the medical NGO Doctors Without Borders, lacks the “necessary conditions for survival.”
In recent months, Israeli attacks have further deteriorated conditions for those living and taking refuge in the city, including some 600,000 children. Malnutrition is spreading rapidly and medical facilities are “disabled by the siege by the Israeli authorities,” MSF said.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that “Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza.” An Israeli ground incursion “would pose catastrophic risks” to already wounded, sick, malnourished and traumatized people who have nowhere safe to go, he said.
Two children, Malek and Yousef, were leaving Rafah on bicycles this Monday, clinging to their bags.
“We are fleeing from the Israelis. They warned us and ordered us to evacuate the eastern area. I have my clothes and food in the bag. We are going to our grandparents’ house,” said one of them.
The Israeli military directed people to Al-Mawasi, a narrow coastal area that Israel has designated an “expanded humanitarian zone.”
In Al-Mawasi, already crowded with displaced people, some of the new arrivals seemed confused and disoriented. The streets were packed with trucks and donkey carts, surrounded by huge piles of garbage.
“I came here from Rafah and didn’t find anywhere to stay. People even say we should leave [de aquí]. I swear I don’t know where to go. They distributed pamphlets and people panicked and started running away,” said Mohammad Abu Khamash.
The main UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that Al-Mawasi is not a suitable place to live.
“It’s really not a suitable place for people to put up tents and be able to sit and try to live and meet their basic needs every day,” Scott Anderson, UNRWA affairs director in Gaza, told CNN on Monday.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a statement that the evacuation order was illegal and that Al-Mawasi “is already overstretched and deprived of vital services.”
“It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah, with no guarantees of safety, adequate accommodation or return after hostilities end for those forced to relocate,” he said.
Many of those who fled Monday said there is nowhere safe for them and their families.
“We had to endure airstrikes that endangered our lives and those of our children. We left in search of a bit of decent life that we can live with our families,” said Ahmad Safi, who left Rafah for Khan Younis with his family. .
Safi said he fetched water every day.
“There is no life. It is very complicated. I arrived in Khan Younis and I felt very depressed. It was a city full of life and happiness, but now it is not even worth living in. We are eight members of a family. We came in a car from Rafah. “I’m still in shock about leaving Rafah.”
“There is no security anywhere. The Israelis can enter at any time wherever they want,” he added.
And as the residents of Rafah fled, Israel carried out new attacks on the city.
In the latest update, Israeli airstrikes on Rafah overnight killed 15 people, including a child, officials at a southern Gaza hospital reported Tuesday.
The attacks in Rafah between Sunday night and early Monday morning killed at least 26 people, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense.
Rafah resident Abu Salah said he had left the city under intense Israeli fire.
“There is no security. Security is being in my house. Security is moving from one place to another like a cat with its children, begging for some water and a coupon [de comida]?”, he claimed.
A woman named Maha said Palestinian civilians were at the mercy of the Israeli military.
“They can tell you to go here and they kill you here, or they tell you to go there and they kill you there. They don’t want security for us,” he said.
“The solution is to end this cause, not just stop the war, but have a Palestinian state,” he added.
— CNN’s Eve Brennan, Mia Alberti, Magdi Abdelhadi, Richard Roth, Sarah El Sirgany and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.
