‘Hell Falling’: Fear and Grief in Rafah After Deadly Israeli Raid 

A child looks on as Palestinians inspect a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)
A child looks on as Palestinians inspect a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)
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‘Hell Falling’: Fear and Grief in Rafah After Deadly Israeli Raid 

A child looks on as Palestinians inspect a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)
A child looks on as Palestinians inspect a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 12 February 2024. (EPA)

Majed al-Afifi was just 40 days old when he was killed, his uncle told AFP in Rafah where Israeli forces bombed multiple homes while rescuing two Gaza hostages.

"We heard the bombing without warning," said Said al-Hams, 26, in Rafah refugee camp.

His nephew, a twin, "was born exactly 40 days ago and was killed", while their mother was wounded.

The newborn is among around 100 people killed by Israeli forces overnight in Rafah, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Dozens of Israeli strikes pounded Rafah, where some 1.4 million people have sought refuge during four months of war between Israel and Hamas militants.

While there was jubilation in Israel over the liberation of the two hostages, in Rafah people recounted a fearful night.

"The situation was hell," said Abu Suhaib, who was sleeping dozens of meters from where Israeli forces struck.

"We heard the sound of explosions, like hell falling down on civilians," he told AFP.

The 28-year-old said he heard warplanes firing, shooting and a helicopter landing.

A massive pile of rubble stands where multiple buildings were flattened by Israeli strikes, beside the remains of a four-storey house.

Witnesses said the residents of the house fled two months ago, after the Israeli military warned them it would be bombed.

The aerial bombardment also left five vast craters, at least 10 meters wide and five metres deep, an AFP journalist said.

"I can't tell you how we survived the night," said Abu Abdullah al-Qadi, who was woken by the sound of shooting.

"They killed my cousin, they killed a lot of people with strikes," he told AFP, as dozens gathered by the destroyed buildings.

"They stormed this building and it appears that they freed prisoners -- and then they bombed it," said Qadi.

"They bombed all the houses next to it," he added.

'A terrifying night'

The refugee camp sits in the heart of Rafah, where vast crowds have gathered after following Israeli orders to flee other parts of Gaza.

Despite mounting international alarm at a possible ground invasion of the city, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday that "continued military pressure" is the only way to free all hostages.

Palestinian militants seized about 250 hostages during their October 7 attack on southern Israel, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Israel says around 130 are still in Gaza, though 29 are thought to be dead.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The relentless offensive by Israel has killed at least 28,340 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the latest health ministry toll.

Fearing an onslaught by ground forces, dozens of families already displaced by the war started packing up their scant belongings on Monday.

"It was a terrifying night," said Alaa Mohammed, from northern Gaza, dismantling a tent in western Rafah.

"What happened at night foreshadows something big happening in Rafah. It seems that the Israeli army will enter Rafah as they announced," said the 42-year-old.

The family is planning on travelling to the Deir al-Balah area of central Gaza, an earlier focus for Israeli troops after they destroyed swathes of the north.

Mohammed started gathering their blankets and mattresses, after a sleepless night, while relatives went in search of transport.

"A lot of families around me undid their tents like us," he said.

"I hope we can find a car or a truck. We called more than one driver we know, but all of them are busy."



Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum

A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum

A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Under a punishing mid‑morning sun, Souad Abdallah cradles her infant and stares at a freshly opened pit in al‑Baraka square on the eastern fringe of Sudan’s capital.

Moments earlier the hole had served as the hurried grave of her husband – one of hundreds of people buried in playgrounds, traffic islands and vacant lots during Sudan’s two‑year war.

Seven months ago, Abdallah could not risk the sniper fire and checkpoints that ringed Khartoum’s official cemeteries. Today she is handed her husband’s remains in a numbered white body‑bag so he can receive the dignity of a proper burial.

She is not alone. Families gather at the square, pointing out makeshift graves – “my brother lies here... my mother there” – before forensic teams lift 118 bodies and load them onto flat‑bed trucks known locally as dafaar.

The Sudanese war erupted on 15 April 2023 when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army clashed for control of Khartoum, quickly spreading to its suburbs, notably Omdurman. More than 500 civilians died in the first days and thousands more have been killed since, although no official tally exists.

The army recaptured the capital on 20 May 2025, but the harder task, officials say, is re‑burying thousands of bodies scattered in mass graves, streets and public squares.

“For the next 40 days we expect to move about 7,000 bodies from across Khartoum to public cemeteries,” Dr. Hisham Zein al‑Abideen, the city’s chief forensic pathologist, told Asharq Al-Awsat. He said his teams, working with the Sudanese Red Crescent, have already exhumed and re-interred some 3,500 bodies and located more than 40 mass graves.

One newly discovered site at the International University of Africa in southern Khartoum contains about 7,000 RSF fighters spread over a square‑kilometer area, he added.

Abdallah, a mother of three, recalled to Asharq Al-Awsat how a stray bullet pierced her bedroom window and killed her husband. “We buried him at night, without witnesses and without a wake,” she said. “Today I am saying goodbye again this time with honor.”

Nearby, Khadija Zakaria wept as workers unearthed her sister. “She died of natural causes, but we were barred from the cemetery, so we buried her here,” she said. Her niece and brother‑in‑law were laid in other improvised graves and are also awaiting transfer.

Exhumations can be grim. After finishing at al‑Baraka, the team drives to al‑Fayhaa district, where the returning owner of an abandoned house has reported a desiccated corpse in his living room. Neighbors said it is a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighter shot by comrades. In another case, a body is pulled from an irrigation canal and taken straight to a cemetery.

Social media rumors that authorities demand hefty fees for re‑burials are untrue, Dr. Zein al‑Abideen stressed. “Transporting the remains is free. It is completely our responsibility,” he added. The forensic crews rotate in two shifts to cope with the fierce heat.

Asked how they cope with the daily horror, one member smiled wanly over a cup of tea, saying: “We are human. We try to find solutions amid the tragedy. If it were up to us, no family would have to mourn twice.”

Khartoum today is burying bodies – and memories. “We are laying our dead to rest and, with them, part of the pain,” Abdallah said as she left the square, her child asleep on her shoulder. “I buried my husband twice, but we have not forgotten him for a single day. Perhaps now he can finally rest in peace.”