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Palestinian human rights groups say that Israel has escalated its attacks in Rafah, southern Gaza, where approximately 1.3 million people, the vast majority of them displaced from other areas in the territory, are now concentrated.
Israel has also intensified artillery shelling in the eastern area of Rafah in what Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights describe as a campaign of intimidation aimed at compelling a new wave of forced displacement ahead of a large-scale military assault on Rafah.
More than 40 Palestinians, including 13 children and 12 women, were killed during intensified Israeli attacks on Rafah between 26 and 29 April, according to the rights groups.
A baby less than a week old was killed when Israeli warplanes targeted a home belonging to the al-Khawaja family in Rafah’s al-Shabura refugee camp. Nine people were killed in the attack, the majority of them Palestinians displaced from the Gaza City area and Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
The deadly strikes on the al-Khawaja family home, and several other residences in Rafah, occurred without warning.
In another case, a Palestinian man was killed in a strike that involved a warning.
Khaled Hameed, a 43-year-old with a speaking disability, was killed when Israeli warplanes bombed the al-Ghalban family home southeast of Rafah on 26 April. Hameed was inside of his home next to the one that was targeted at the time of the attack.
“Before the bombing, Israeli forces contacted one of the neighbors, instructing them to evacuate nearby houses,” the rights groups said.
Flight to al-Mawasi
The threat of shelling has led to tens of thousands of people moving from Rafah to already overcrowded al-Mawasi, an area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where displaced people have set up tents or makeshift nylon shelters on farmland, roadsides and along the coast without basic infrastructure.
More than 34,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October and nearly 78,000 injured, according to the health ministry in the territory. Thousands of others remain buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings or are missing.
The three Palestinian human rights groups called for urgent intervention to prevent an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah and to “secure the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes and ensure the unhindered provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”
The groups called for “diplomatic, economic and individual sanctions, and a two-way arms embargo” to pressure Israel to comply with its international obligations, including orders to halt genocidal acts from the UN’s World Court and a ceasefire demanded by the Security Council.
Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, warned this week that a ground operation in Rafah “is on the immediate horizon.”
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