The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) has disclosed that almost 450,000 Palestinians have fled from Rafah over the past week, following the assault by Israeli tanks on the southern Gaza city as the war between Israel and Hamas rages.
UNRWA, which is the UN agency that takes care of refugees in Palestine, warned that “People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear.”
However, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said it is pushing further into Rafah “against terror targets” in the east of the city, where more than a million people had been taking shelter.
Israeli troops again carried out operations in Zeitoun and Jabalia to dislodge Hamas militants it claimed had regrouped there to continue fighting, after five months it announced that Hamas had been dismantled in those places.
The IDF has called on civilians to leave eastern Rafah and Jabalia for their own safety before starting the assaults, but the total of those displaced in recent days is reported to be equivalent to almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
Israel initiated a retaliatory military campaign to destroy Hamas following the group’s cross-border attack on southern Israel on 7 October where about 1,200 Israelis were killed while 252 others were taken hostage.
An estimated 35,170 people have been killed in Gaza since then and about 77,000 injured according to the Hamas-run health ministry
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