UNRWA: More Than Half a Million People Flee Fighting in Rafah, Northern Gaza 

Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP)
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UNRWA: More Than Half a Million People Flee Fighting in Rafah, Northern Gaza 

Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said nearly 450,000 people have fled from Gaza’s southern city of Rafah since Israel launched an incursion there last week.

In a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, UNRWA said: “People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear. Nowhere is safe. An immediate #ceasefire is the only hope.”

The UN said Monday that another 100,000 people have been displaced in northern Gaza. Israel has ordered new evacuations in the north as it battles a resurgent Hamas in areas that were heavily bombed and cleared by ground troops earlier in the war.

That would mean that nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced in just the last week, more than seven months into the Israel-Hamas war.

The fighting in Rafah has made the two main border crossings into southern Gaza largely inaccessible, while newly opened crossings in the north only allow in a trickle of aid.

Humanitarian organizations say they are struggling to provide dwindling supplies of food, tents and blankets to the large numbers of newly displaced.

Israel has portrayed Rafah as Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza and has said it must operate there in order to defeat the group and return scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.

Before the incursion began last week, Rafah was housing some 1.3 million Palestinians, most of whom had fled fighting elsewhere.



UN Security Council Says Peacekeeping Force Should Remain on the Israel-Syria Border

Israeli army humvees move in the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on December 21, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
Israeli army humvees move in the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on December 21, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
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UN Security Council Says Peacekeeping Force Should Remain on the Israel-Syria Border

Israeli army humvees move in the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on December 21, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
Israeli army humvees move in the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on December 21, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution extending the UN peacekeeping force on the Israel-Syria border and underscoring that there should be no military activities in the demilitarized buffer zone.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israeli troops will occupy the buffer zone for the foreseeable future. Israel captured the buffer zone shortly after the collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, The Associated Press said.
The resolution adopted Friday stressed that both countries are obligated “to scrupulously and fully respect” the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement that ended the 1973 war between Syria and Israel and established the buffer zone. The resolution was co-sponsored by the United States and Russia.
The Security Council extended the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force monitoring the border area, known as UNDOF, until June 30, 2025 and called for a halt to all military actions throughout the country including in UNDOF’s area of operations.
The resolution expresses concern that ongoing military activities in the area of separation have the potential to escalate Israeli-Syrian tensions and jeopardize the 1974 ceasefire. It also expresses alarm that violence in Syria “risks a serious conflagration of the conflict in the region.”