‘No Space for Everyone’: Rafah Overwhelmed with Fleeing Gazans

Internally displaced Palestinians seek refuge inside makeshift shelters in Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip, February 02, 2024. (EPA)
Internally displaced Palestinians seek refuge inside makeshift shelters in Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip, February 02, 2024. (EPA)
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‘No Space for Everyone’: Rafah Overwhelmed with Fleeing Gazans

Internally displaced Palestinians seek refuge inside makeshift shelters in Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip, February 02, 2024. (EPA)
Internally displaced Palestinians seek refuge inside makeshift shelters in Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip, February 02, 2024. (EPA)

Tens of thousands of people crammed into a street in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where vast numbers have sought refuge from advancing Israeli ground troops.

"These are the worst months of our lives," said Noha al-Madhun, who fled from the Beit Lahia area of northern Gaza and was taken in by relatives along with some of her children.

"My husband and eldest sons sleep in a tent. There's no space for everyone. We sleep on the floor and we feel the cold" without enough blankets to go round, she said.

"There aren't enough apartments or even places to set up extra tents," added Madhun.

More than half of Gaza's population of 2.4 million is in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, according to the United Nations.

Those without relatives to host them or the means to rent apartments have found themselves in tents wherever there is space: along streets, in public squares, sports stadiums or parks.

Abdulkarim Misbah, 32, said he left his home in the northern Jabalia refugee camp and reached Khan Younis, only to be uprooted once more.

"We escaped last week from death in Khan Younis, without bringing anything with us. We didn't find a place to stay. We slept on the streets the first two nights. The women and children slept in a mosque," he said.

Then they received a donated tent, setting it up right beside the Egyptian border.

"My four children are shivering from the cold. They feel sick and unwell all the time," said Misbah.

Forced to flee south

Most people are concentrated in the city center or west, trying to avoid the eastern edges towards the Israeli border or the north which is dangerously close to fighting in nearby Khan Younis.

After the war erupted on October 7 with Hamas militants' unprecedented attack on Israel, the country's military ordered Gazans to leave their homes in the north.

Those instructions have since expanded, forcing many Palestinians to flee time and again.

Gaza City resident Amjad Abdel Aal, who fled to a school shelter in Rafah, said it took her two hours to be driven a distance which before the war would take just 15 minutes.

"The congestion was awful," she said, waiting in a wheelchair in a long line for donations of blankets and mattresses.

"There aren't a lot of cars because of the fuel shortage. Everyone walks, rides a truck or donkey cart," added the barefoot 28-year-old.

The United Nations estimates 1.7 million have been forced from their homes by the war since October 7.

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

Israel's withering offensive has killed at least 27,131 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

'Death is more merciful'

With Egypt's border shut to most Gazans throughout the war, the streets of Rafah have become packed with displaced people.

Mehran Dabbabish, 41, a taxi driver from Khan Younis, said the situation was "getting worse by the day".

"The road between Khan Younis and Rafah used to take 20 to 30 minutes at worst. Today, the shortest trip within Rafah takes an hour and a half to two hours," he told AFP.

The overcrowding is putting a massive strain on everyone and means moving anywhere, by any means, is incredibly difficult.

Another Gazan, Naima al-Bayumi, lamented how tired she was just halfway through a four-hour journey by foot to visit her relative in hospital.

"I rode a donkey cart a few times and fell off because of the intense scramble," she told AFP.

Bayumi started crying as she recounted the bombardment which hit her home, killing her baby twins.

"I gave birth to them in the first week of the war, after 13 years of marriage," said the 38-year-old, who lives in a tent with her husband.

"I don't want to live anymore," she said.

Elsewhere on the road, people helped another woman clamber aboard a truck filled with dozens of passengers.

She clung to the side of the truck with her baby, to stop them falling out, and screamed: "Death is more merciful than this life!"



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.