80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency

Update 80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency
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Palestinians travel in a vehicle as they flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city of Rafah on May 8, 2024. (REUTERS)
Update 80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency
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Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on May 7, 2024. (AP)
Update 80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency
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Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on May 7, 2024. (AP)
Update 80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency
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Palestinians travel in a truck as they feel Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city of Rafah on May 8, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 09 May 2024
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80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency

80,000 Palestinians flee Rafah since Israel hiked operation this week: UN agency
  • The main hospital has shut down, leaving little care for people suffering from malnutrition, illnesses and wounds
  • Rafah had 250,000 residents before the war. Its population had ballooned to some 1.4 million as people from across Gaza fled there

RAFAH, Gaza Strip: The United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees said Thursday that about 80,000 people had fled Rafah in the three days since Israel intensified military operations in the south Gaza city.
“Since Israeli forces military operation intensified on 6 May, around 80,000 people have fled Rafah, seeking refuge elsewhere,” UNRWA said on X, formerly Twitter, warning that “the toll on these families is unbearable. Nowhere is safe.”

The main hospital has shut down, leaving little care for people suffering from malnutrition, illnesses and wounds.
And with fuel and other supplies cut off, aid workers have been scrambling to help a population desperate after seven months of war.
As the possibility of a full-scale invasion looms, Gaza’s overcrowded southernmost city has been thrown into panic and chaos by Israel’s seizure of the nearby border crossing with Egypt.
Families uprooted multiple times by the war were uncertain where to go: to the half-destroyed city of Khan Younis, to points even farther north, or to an Israeli-declared “humanitarian zone” in Gaza already teeming with people with little water or supplies?
The past three days, streams of people on foot or in vehicles have jammed the roads out of Rafah in a confused evacuation, their belongings piled high in cars, trucks and donkey carts. All the while, Israeli bombardment has boomed and raised palls of smoke.
“The war has caught up with us even in schools. There is no safe place at all,” said Nuzhat Jarjer. Her family packed on Wednesday to leave a UN school-turned-shelter in Rafah that was rapidly emptying of the hundreds who had lived there for months.
Rafah had 250,000 residents before the war. Its population had ballooned to some 1.4 million as people from across Gaza fled there. Nearly every empty space was blanketed with tent camps, and families crammed into schools or homes with relatives. Like the rest of Gaza’s population, they have been largely reliant on aid groups for food and other basics of life.
Israel on Monday issued evacuation orders for eastern parts of the city, home to some 100,000. It then sent tanks to seize the nearby Rafah crossing with Egypt, shutting it down.




Israeli army tanks take position in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on May 7, 2024, ahead of an offensive. (AFP)

It remains uncertain whether Israel will launch an all-out invasion of Rafah as international efforts continue for a ceasefire. Israel has said an assault on Rafah is crucial to its goal of destroying Hamas after the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that left 1,200 dead and 250 as hostages in Gaza.
The United States, which opposes a Rafah invasion, has said Israel has not provided a credible plan for evacuating and protecting civilians. The war has killed over 34,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and has driven some 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes.
For now, confusion has reigned. Fearing a greater assault, Palestinians fled districts other than the eastern areas they were ordered to leave. Tens of thousands are estimated to have left, according to a UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity because agencies were still trying to determine precise figures.
Tent camps in some parts of Rafah have vanished, springing up again further north along main roads. New camps have filled streets, cemeteries and the beach in the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, 15 kilometers (10 miles) north, as people flowed in, said Ghada Alhaddad, who works there with the aid group Oxfam, speaking to a briefing by several humanitarian workers.




Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on May 7, 2024. (AP)

Others made their way to Khan Younis, much of which was destroyed in a months-long Israeli ground assault.
Suze van Meegen, head of operations for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Palestine, said the Rafah district where she is based “feels like a ghost town.”
The Israeli military told those evacuating to go to a “humanitarian zone” it declared in Muwasi, a nearby rural area on the Mediterranean coast. The zone is already packed with some 450,000 people, according to the UN Few new facilities appear to be prepared, despite the military’s announcements that tents, medical centers and food would be present.
The ground is covered in many places with sewage and solid waste, since there are few sanitation facilities, aid workers say. Clean water is lacking and dehydration is a major problem, with temperatures some days already reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius).
The water quality is “horrifically bad. We tested some of the water and the fecal content … is incredibly high,” said James Smith, a British emergency doctor volunteering at the European General Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. Acute jaundice is rampant — and probably caused by hepatitis, but there’s no capabilities to test, he said.
The newly arrived struggle to find tents because of an extreme shortage among aid groups.
Before his family left Rafah to the zone, Iyad Al-Masry said he had to sell food received from aid groups to buy a tent for the equivalent of nearly $400.
His family set up their tent in Muwasi, smoothing the dirt ground before setting down a cradle to rock an infant in. Al-Masri said he has been searching for water and can’t afford the three shekels — a little less than $1 — that sellers charge for a gallon of drinking water.
“We want to eat … We are just waiting for God’s mercy,” he said.
Nick Maynard, a surgeon with Medical Aid for Palestinians who left Gaza on Monday, said two teenage girls who had survivable injuries died last week because of complications from malnutrition.
“They get this vicious cycle of malnutrition, infection, wounds breaking down, more infection, more malnutrition,” said Maynard.
The number of children in Rafah who have lost one or more limbs is “staggering,” said Alexandra Saieh from Save The Children. “These people cannot just pick up and relocate.”

 

Rafah’s main Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital evacuated on Tuesday. Smith said staff and patients rushed out even though they weren’t under evacuation orders because they feared Israeli troops would raid, just as they did hospitals in northern Gaza and Khan Younis, which were left decimated.
Israel claims Hamas used the hospitals for military purposes, an accusation Hamas and Gaza health officials deny.
Israeli tank shells Wednesday hit about 300 meters (yards) from the Kuwaiti Hospital, one of the few facilities still operating, and wounded several children, according to hospital officials.
The closure of Rafah crossing and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel has cut off the entry of food, supplies, and fuel for aid trucks and generators. Aid groups warn they have only a few days of fuel before humanitarian operations and hospitals around Gaza begin to shut down.
Israel said Wednesday it reopened Kerem Shalom, which was shut after Hamas mortars killed four Israeli soldiers nearby, but aid groups said no trucks were entering the Gaza side. Trucks let through from Israel must be unloaded and the cargo reloaded onto trucks in Gaza, but no workers in Gaza can get to the facility to do so because it is too dangerous, the UN says.

 


Palestinian workers trying to reach the border crossing Wednesday were shot at, and several were wounded, the Israeli military said. It did not specify who opened fire but said it was investigating. Hamas also shelled in the area of Kerem Shalom on Wednesday, saying it was targeting nearby troops.
The UN’s World Food Program has been cut off from its Gaza food warehouse near the Rafah crossing, its deputy executive director Carl Skau said. It procured another warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, but it’s empty until crossings reopen, he said.
Van Meegen, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said without more supplies, “how do we even begin to prioritize the dribble of humanitarian aid we have here when almost every single person is being forced to depend on it?”
 

 


Syrian leader to visit Turkiye on Tuesday: presidency

Syrian leader to visit Turkiye on Tuesday: presidency
Updated 9 sec ago
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Syrian leader to visit Turkiye on Tuesday: presidency

Syrian leader to visit Turkiye on Tuesday: presidency
ISTANBUL: Syria’s interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa will visit Turkiye on Tuesday on his second international visit since the toppling of Bashar Assad in December, the Turkish presidency said.
Sharaa “will pay a visit to Ankara on Tuesday at the invitation of our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Fahrettin Altun, head of communications at the presidency, said on X.

Car bomb explosion near Syrian Arab Republic’s Manbij kills 15

Car bomb explosion near Syrian Arab Republic’s Manbij kills 15
Updated 24 min 50 sec ago
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Car bomb explosion near Syrian Arab Republic’s Manbij kills 15

Car bomb explosion near Syrian Arab Republic’s Manbij kills 15

DAMASCUS: A car bomb on Monday killed 15 people, mostly women farm workers, in the northern Syrian city of Manbij where Kurdish forces are battling Turkiye-backed groups, state media reported.

Citing White Helmet rescuers, SANA news agency said there had been a “massacre” on a local road, with “the explosion of a car bomb near a vehicle transporting agricultural workers” killing 14 women and one man.

The attack also wounded 15 women, some critically, SANA said, adding the toll could rise.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

It was the second such attack in recent days in war-ravaged Syrian Arab Republic, where Islamist-led rebels toppled autocratic president Bashar Assad in December.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported nine people, including an unspecified number of pro-Turkiye fighters, killed Saturday “when a car bomb exploded near a military position” in Manbij.

Turkiye-backed forces in Syria’s north launched an offensive against the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in November, capturing several Kurdish-held enclaves in the north despite US efforts to broker a ceasefire.

With US support, the SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted the Daesh group from Syrian Arab Republic in 2019.

But Turkiye accuses the main component of the group – the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – of being affiliated with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Both Turkiye and the United States have designated the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil, a terrorist group.

Syrian Arab Republic’s new rulers have called on the SDF to hand over their weapons, rejecting demands for any kind of Kurdish self-rule.

Assad ruled Syrian Arab Republic with an iron fist and his bloody crackdown down on anti-government protests in 2011 sparked a war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.


Israeli prime minister in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks

Israeli prime minister in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks
Updated 03 February 2025
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Israeli prime minister in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks

Israeli prime minister in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks
  • Netanyahu told reporters he would discuss "victory over Hamas"
  • Trump said Sunday that negotiations with Israel and other countries in the Middle East were "progressing"

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to begin talks Monday on brokering a second phase of the ceasefire with Hamas, his office said, as he visits the new Trump administration in Washington.
Ahead of his departure, Netanyahu told reporters he would discuss "victory over Hamas", contending with Iran and freeing all hostages when he meets with President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
It will be Trump's first meeting with a foreign leader since returning to the White House in January, a prioritisation Netanyahu called "telling".
"I think it's a testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance," he said before boarding his flight.
He was welcomed to the US capital on Sunday night by Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who stressed the coming Trump-Netanyahu meeting would strengthen "the deep alliance between Israel and the United States and will enhance our cooperation".
Trump, who has claimed credit for sealing the ceasefire deal after 15 months of war, said Sunday that negotiations with Israel and other countries in the Middle East were "progressing".
"Bibi (Benjamin) Netanyahu's coming on Tuesday, and I think we have some very big meetings scheduled," Trump said.
Netanyahu's office said he would begin discussions with Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday over terms for the second phase of the truce.
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are meanwhile due to resume this week.
The initial, 42-day phase of the deal is due to end next month.
The next stage is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.
Trump has said that 15 months of fighting has reduced the Palestinian territory to a "demolition site" and has repeatedly touted a plan to "clean out" the Gaza Strip, calling for Palestinians to move to neighbouring countries such as Egypt or Jordan.
Qatar, which jointly mediated the ceasefire along with the US and Egypt, underscored on Sunday the importance of allowing Palestinians to "return to their homes and land".
"We emphasised the importance of concerted efforts to intensify the entry of humanitarian aid and rehabilitate the Strip to make it livable and to stabilise the Palestinian people in their land," Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said following a meeting with Turkey's foreign minister.

Under the ceasefire's first phase, Hamas was to free 33 hostages in staggered releases in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The truce has also led to a surge of food, fuel, medical and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, while displaced Palestinians have been allowed to begin returning to the north.
During their October 7, 2023 attack, Hamas militants took 251 hostages, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory response has killed at least 47,283 people in Gaza, a majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, figures which the UN considers reliable.
While Trump's predecessor Joe Biden sustained Washington's military and diplomatic backing of Israel, it also distanced itself from the mounting death toll and aid restrictions.
Trump moved quickly to reset relations.
In one of his first acts back in office, he lifted sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and reportedly approved a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that the Biden administration had blocked.
The ceasefire discussions in Washington are expected to also cover concessions Netanyahu must accept to revive normalisation efforts with Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh froze discussions early in the Gaza war and hardened its stance, insisting on a resolution to the Palestinian issue before making any deal.
Trump believes "that he must stabilise the region first and create an anti-Iran coalition with his strategic partners," including Israel and Saudi Arabia, said David Khalfa, a researcher at the Jean Jaures Foundation in Paris.
But Netanyahu faces intense pressure from within his cabinet to resume the war, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatening to quit and strip the prime minister of his majority.

On the ground, Israel said Sunday it has killed at least 50 militants and detained more than 100 "wanted individuals" during an operation in the West Bank.
The massive offensive began on January 21 with the Israeli military saying it aimed to root out Palestinian armed groups from the Jenin area, which has long been a hotbed of militancy.
On Sunday, Palestinian official news agency WAFA said Israeli forces "simultaneously detonated about 20 buildings" in the eastern part of Jenin refugee camp, adding that the "explosions were heard throughout Jenin city and parts of the neighbouring towns".
The Palestinian health ministry meanwhile said the Israeli military killed a 73-year-old man and a 27-year-old in separate incidents in the West Bank on Sunday.
Violence has surged across the West Bank since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 883 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 30 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.


Trump’s aid freeze shocks a Syria camp holding families linked to the Daesh group

Trump’s aid freeze shocks a Syria camp holding families linked to the Daesh group
Updated 03 February 2025
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Trump’s aid freeze shocks a Syria camp holding families linked to the Daesh group

Trump’s aid freeze shocks a Syria camp holding families linked to the Daesh group
  • US-funded organization abruptly suspends aid activities at the sprawling Al-Hol tent camp
  • Aid organization works under the supervision of the US-led coalition formed to fight Daesh

AL-HOL, Syrian Arab Republic: Ahmad Abdullah Hammoud was lucky to have some food stored to feed his family after a US-funded organization abruptly suspended its aid activities at the sprawling tent camp in northeastern Syrian Arab Republic where they have been forced to stay for nearly six years.
His family is among 37,000 people, mostly women and children, with alleged ties to the Daesh group at the bleak, trash-strewn Al-Hol camp, where the Trump administration’s unprecedented freeze on foreign aid caused chaos and uncertainty and worsened the dire humanitarian conditions.
When the freeze was announced shortly after Trump took office, US-funded aid programs worldwide began shutting down operations, including the
Aid organization works under the supervision of the US-led coalition formed to fight Daesh.
The US-based Blumont briefly suspended operations, according to the camp’s director. It had been providing essentials such as bread, water, kerosene and cooking gas. Blumont didn’t reply to questions.
“We were troubled when Blumont suspended its activities,” said Hammoud, who denies links with Daesh and had been sheltering in an Daesh -controlled area after being displaced during Syrian Arab Republic’s civil war.
“Believe me, we did not find food. Even bread only came at 2 p.m.,” said another camp resident, Dirar Al-Ali.
Camp director Jihan Hanan told The Associated Press that other aid agencies, including the World Health Organization, had ceased some operations.
“It is a disgraceful decision,” Hanan said of the Trump administration’s action, adding that some residents argued they should be allowed to leave if food cannot be provided.
She said Blumont distributes 5,000 bags of bread daily at a cost of about $4,000, something that local authorities in the Kurdish-run enclave cannot afford.
Uncertain times ahead
Hanan said Blumont received a two-week waiver from the Trump administration and resumed work on Jan. 28. It is not clear what will happen once the waiver ends.
Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control northeastern Syrian Arab Republic, said he has raised the aid freeze issue with officials from the US-led coalition.
“We are on the verge of finding an alternative to this decision,” Abdi said, adding that an exemption might be issued for northeastern Syrian Arab Republic.
The US freeze comes as Daesh tries to take advantage of the vacuum created by the fall of Assad’s government in early December to insurgents. Another cut in food supplies could lead to riots by camp residents that Daesh, which has sleeper cells there, could exploit.
Hanan said the camp had received information from the US-led coalition against Daesh, the Iraqi government and the US-backed and Kurdish-led SDF, that Daesh was preparing to attack the camp after Assad’s fall. Security was increased and the situation is under control, she said.
The SDF runs 28 detention facilities in northeastern Syrian Arab Republic holding some 9,000 Daesh members. Security at Al-Hol camp and the detention facilities are not expected to be affected by the US aid freeze, according to Hanan and an official at the largest detention facility in the northeastern city of Hassakeh, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The main part of Al-Hol houses some 16,000 Iraqis and 15,000 Syrians. In a separate, heavily guarded section known as the Annex are another 6,300 people from 42 countries, the vast majority of them wives, widows and children who are considered the most die-hard Daesh supporters.
The camp has no paved roads and piles of trash. Teenagers and children with almost nothing to do spend their time playing soccer or wandering around.
Children in the Annex threw stones at visiting AP journalists and shouted “You are a Satan” and “The Islamic State is lasting.”
’Sustenance is from God’
A Chinese woman in the Annex, who identified herself as Asmaa Ahmad and said she came from the western region of Xinjiang, described her husband as “an Islamic State martyr” killed in 2019 in the eastern Syrian Arab Republic village of Baghouz, where Daesh lost the last sliver of land it once controlled.
Ahmad, who is in the camp with her four children, said she does not want to go back to China, fearing persecution. Asked about the temporary loss of US aid, she replied: “Sustenance is from God.”
She said she is waiting for Daesh members to rescue her family one day.
Al-Hol is the most dangerous place in the world, camp director Hanan asserted, adding that countries should repatriate their citizens to prevent children being fed the extremist ideology. “This place is not suitable for children,” she said.
The US military has been pushing for years for countries who have citizens at Al-Hol and the smaller, separate Roj Camp to repatriate them.
“Without international repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration efforts, these camps risk creating the next generation of Daesh,” Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, head of US Central Command, said during a visit to Al-Hol in mid-January.
Hanan said that since the fall of Assad, many Syrians in the camp have expressed a desire to return to their homes in areas held by the country’s new rulers. She said camp authorities decided that any Syrian who wants to leave can go.
Even if the camp population drops, “there will be a disaster” if US aid is suspended again, she added.


Qatar’s prime minister calls on Hamas, Israel to begin immediate talks on Gaza ceasefire phase two

Qatar’s prime minister calls on Hamas, Israel to begin immediate talks on Gaza ceasefire phase two
Updated 03 February 2025
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Qatar’s prime minister calls on Hamas, Israel to begin immediate talks on Gaza ceasefire phase two

Qatar’s prime minister calls on Hamas, Israel to begin immediate talks on Gaza ceasefire phase two
  • Israel and Hamas last month reached complex three-phase accord that halted fighting in Gaza
  • Hamas has released 18 hostages in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinians 

DOHA: Qatar’s prime minister on Sunday called on Israel and Hamas to immediately begin negotiating phase two of the Gaza ceasefire, adding that there is no clear plan for when talks will begin.
“We demand (Hamas and Israel) to engage immediately as stipulated in the agreement,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at a press conference held jointly with Turkiye’s foreign minister in the Qatari capital Doha on Sunday.
According to the ceasefire agreement, negotiations on implementing the second phase of the deal should begin before the 16th day of phase one of the ceasefire, which is Monday.
Israel and Hamas last month reached a complex three-phase accord that has halted the fighting in Gaza. Hamas has so far released 18 hostages in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
There are more than 70 hostages still held in Gaza.
The second stage of the accord is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza, a permanent end to hostilities and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
“There is nothing yet clear about where the delegations will come and when it’s going to take place,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
Mediators have engaged with Hamas and Israel over the phone and Qatar has set an agenda for the next phase of negotiations, he said.
“We hope that we start to see some movement in the next few days. It’s critical that we get things rolling from now in order to get to an agreement before day 42.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he would begin negotiations on phase two of the agreement on Monday in Washington, when he is set to meet US President Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff.
During his meeting with Witkoff, Netanyahu will discuss Israel’s positions in respect to the ceasefire, the prime minister’s office said. Witkoff will then speak with officials from Egypt and Qatar, who have mediated between Israel and Hamas over the past 15 months with backing from Washington.