Following their forced relocation due to Israeli airstrikes, over a million Palestinians have found refuge in the southern part of Gaza City.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, claims that only the United States could prevent Israel from invading Gaza’s border city of Rafah. He also warns that the attack, which he anticipates happening in a few days, may compel a large portion of the Palestinian populace to escape the enclave.
Israel increased its air strikes on Rafah last week. Israel has been threatening for weeks to unleash an all-out attack on the city, claiming its objective is to eliminate Hamas’s surviving battalions there.
Western nations, particularly Israel’s closest friend, the US, have begged Israel to refrain from striking the southern city, which is home to over a million Palestinians who have fled Israel’s seven-month-long assault on a large portion of the remainder of Gaza and borders Egypt.
Reiterating his opposition to Palestinians being forced into Jordan and Egypt, Abbas expressed fear that Israel may try to drive the Palestinian population out of the occupied West Bank and into Jordan after its operations in Gaza are over. After Hamas conducted an attack on southern Israel on October 7, during which Israel claimed 1,139 Palestinians were killed and 253 taken prisoner, Israel began its offensive in Gaza.
Since then, the Gaza Health Ministry reports that over 34,400 Palestinians have died, and the majority of the population has been forced to flee their homes.With Israel’s attack leveling significant parts of the urban environment in the rest of the area, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians taking refuge in Rafah have nowhere to go.
