The number of Palestinians fleeing Rafah rises to around 600,000 as Israel’s attacks intensify

UNRWA denounces that Palestinians continue to be forcibly displaced 76 years after the Nakba

May 16. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Around 600,000 Palestinians have fled since last week from the city of Rafah, located on the border with the Gaza Strip and Egypt, in the face of increased Israeli bombing and military incursions into the city, which include the seizure of the Palestinian side. of the border crossing and the suspension of the delivery of aid through it.

“76 years after the Nakba, Palestinians continue to be forcibly displaced. In the Gaza Strip, 600,000 people have fled Rafah since military operations intensified,” the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency reported. in the Middle East (UNRWA) through his profile on the social network X.

The UN office, which has made reference to the Arabic term used to describe the flight in 1948 of 700,000 people after the creation of the State of Israel within the framework of the commemoration of the 76 years of the “Catastrophe”, has added that since October “around 1.7 million people have had to flee their homes and shelters due to the war in Gaza, many of them multiple times.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, denounced on Sunday “a new massive displacement for an already traumatized population.” “Where does (Israel) want them to go? There is no safe place left in Gaza!” He stated, before maintaining that these are “people who are exhausted, who are hungry and who have run out of options.”

On May 7, Israel announced control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, suspending humanitarian operations, which has increased international concern about the deepening humanitarian crisis. The operation was launched after rejecting a ceasefire proposal previously accepted by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

The Israeli Army launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip in response to the attacks carried out on October 7 by Hamas, which left 1,200 dead and 240 hostages. Since then, Palestinian authorities have reported the deaths of more than 35,200 people, plus another 480 as a result of security force operations and attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.