Aid Groups Warn of Rafah ‘Bloodbath’ If Israel Advances

 Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)
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Aid Groups Warn of Rafah ‘Bloodbath’ If Israel Advances

 Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (AP)

Any Israeli military advance into southern Gaza's Rafah area could cause mass deaths among the more than a million Palestinians trapped there, with humanitarian aid in danger of collapse, aid workers said on Friday.

Israel has threatened to advance from Khan Younis, Gaza's main southern city, to Rafah, where the population has increased five-fold as people have fled bombardment, often under evacuation orders, since Israel began its assault on Gaza's ruling Hamas movement.

Some 1.5 million people are now jammed into filthy, overcrowded shelters or on the street in a patch of land hemmed in by Egyptian and Israeli border fences and the Mediterranean Sea as well as Israeli forces.

Doctors and aid workers are struggling to supply even basic aid and stop the spread of disease.

"No war can be allowed in a gigantic refugee camp," said Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warning of a "bloodbath" if Israeli operations expand there.

"Expanded hostilities in Rafah could collapse the humanitarian response," NRC added in a statement.

Reuters has in recent days filmed the funerals of civilians killed in recent days by Israeli strikes.

Israel says it takes steps to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas militants of hiding among them, even in shelters - something Hamas denies.

Some 28,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, according to the Gaza health ministry, in a war triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and seized 253 hostages in Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

A doctor who left Gaza last week described Rafah as a "closed jail" with fecal matter running through streets so crowded that there is barely space for medics' vehicles to pass.

"If the same bombs used in Khan Younis were used in Rafah, it would be at least a doubling or tripling of the toll because it's so densely populated," said Dr. Santosh Kumar.

The development charity ActionAid said some people were resorting to eating grass. "Every single person in Gaza is now hungry, and people have just 1.5 to 2 liters of unsafe water per day to meet all their needs," its statement said.

Humanitarian agencies say they cannot move people to safer areas because Israeli troops are positioned to the north, and that the aid that is allowed into the enclave is not nearly enough to go around.

"All our shelters are overflowing and cannot take any more people," said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.



Israel Warns People to Evacuate from More Areas in East, South Lebanon

Workers remove the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike the previous day that targeted the eastern Lebanese village of Bednayel in the Bekaa valley, on October 31, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Sam SKAINEH / AFP)
Workers remove the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike the previous day that targeted the eastern Lebanese village of Bednayel in the Bekaa valley, on October 31, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Sam SKAINEH / AFP)
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Israel Warns People to Evacuate from More Areas in East, South Lebanon

Workers remove the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike the previous day that targeted the eastern Lebanese village of Bednayel in the Bekaa valley, on October 31, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Sam SKAINEH / AFP)
Workers remove the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike the previous day that targeted the eastern Lebanese village of Bednayel in the Bekaa valley, on October 31, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Sam SKAINEH / AFP)

The Israeli military warned people to evacuate from more areas of the eastern city of Baalbek and south Lebanon, including a built-up Palestinian refugee camp.

Israeli airstrikes, meanwhile, killed at least ten people in different parts of the country on Thursday.

The Rashidiyeh refugee camp near the port city of Tyre is one of several dating back to the 1948 Mideast war, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel.

Israel invaded Lebanon at the start of October, after nearly a year of trading fire with Hezbollah. The group began firing rockets, missiles and drones on northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Iran backs both groups.

Israel has warned people to evacuate from large areas of the country, including major cities in the south and east. Over a million people have already fled their homes.

Israeli strikes killed seven people in eastern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News agency. Another strike killed a man on a motorcycle on the coastal highway between Tyre and Sidon.

The news agency also reported a strike on a car on a main highway running through the mountains outside the capital, Beirut. It said the strike in Araya closed the highway, diverting traffic through nearby villages.

Two people were killed in the attack, media reports said.