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UNRWA Says Around 1 Million People Have Fled Rafah in Past 3 Weeks 

Palestinians flee the area of Tal al-Sultan in Rafah with their belongings following renewed Israeli strikes in the city in the southern Gaza Strip on May 28, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
Palestinians flee the area of Tal al-Sultan in Rafah with their belongings following renewed Israeli strikes in the city in the southern Gaza Strip on May 28, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
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UNRWA Says Around 1 Million People Have Fled Rafah in Past 3 Weeks 

Palestinians flee the area of Tal al-Sultan in Rafah with their belongings following renewed Israeli strikes in the city in the southern Gaza Strip on May 28, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
Palestinians flee the area of Tal al-Sultan in Rafah with their belongings following renewed Israeli strikes in the city in the southern Gaza Strip on May 28, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Around one million people have fled the Gazan city of Rafah in the past three weeks, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.

The small city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip had been sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled Israeli assaults on other parts of the enclave.

Since early May, Israel's military has been carrying out what it says is a limited operation in Rafah to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which runs Gaza. It has told civilians to go to an "expanded humanitarian zone" some 20 km (12 miles) away.

Many Palestinians have complained they are vulnerable to Israeli attacks wherever they go and have been moving up and down the Gaza Strip in the past few months.

UNRWA said the flight from Rafah "happened with nowhere safe to go and amidst bombardments, lack of food and water, piles of waste and unsuitable living conditions."

Providing assistance and protection is becoming nearly "impossible", the agency said.

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At Least 8 People are Killed When Passenger Train Slams into Minibus in Egypt

Egyptians look at the crash of two trains that collided near the Khorshid station in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Osama Nageb
Egyptians look at the crash of two trains that collided near the Khorshid station in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Osama Nageb
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At Least 8 People are Killed When Passenger Train Slams into Minibus in Egypt

Egyptians look at the crash of two trains that collided near the Khorshid station in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Osama Nageb
Egyptians look at the crash of two trains that collided near the Khorshid station in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Osama Nageb

A train slammed into a minibus that was crossing the tracks in an unauthorized location in norther Egypt on Thursday, killing at least eight people and leaving 12 injured, the government said.

The deadly crash took place in the Suez Canal province of Ismailia, the health ministry said. More than a dozen ambulances were sent to the scene, Reuters reported.

The Egyptian railway authority said the passenger train was on its regular route when the collision occurred. The place where the minibus was crossing the railway tracks is not designated for crossing.

Local Egyptian news outlets said the victims, who included children, were all take to East Qantara Central Hospital. One child was reported to be in critical condition.

Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where an aging railway system has also been plagued by mismanagement. Last October, a locomotive crashed into the tail of a Cairo-bound passenger train in southern Egypt, killing at least one person. In September, two passenger trains collided in a Nile Delta city, killing at least three people.

In recent years, the government has announced initiatives to improve its railways. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in 2018 that some 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $8.13 billion, would be needed to properly overhaul the neglected rail network.