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Israel Flattens Rafah Ruins; Gazans Fear Plan to Herd Them There 

Displaced Palestinians fleeing Rafah amid ongoing Israeli military operations arrive in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing Rafah amid ongoing Israeli military operations arrive in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
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Israel Flattens Rafah Ruins; Gazans Fear Plan to Herd Them There 

Displaced Palestinians fleeing Rafah amid ongoing Israeli military operations arrive in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians fleeing Rafah amid ongoing Israeli military operations arrive in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)

Israel's army is flattening the remaining ruins of the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, residents say, in what they fear is a part of a plan to herd the population into confinement in a giant camp on the barren ground.

No food or medical supplies have reached the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip in nearly two months, since Israel imposed what has since become its longest ever total blockade of the territory, following the collapse of a six-week ceasefire.

Israel relaunched its ground campaign in mid-March and has since seized swathes of land and ordered residents out of what it says are "buffer zones" around Gaza's edges, including all of Rafah which comprises around 20 percent of the Strip.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Saturday that the military was setting up a new "humanitarian zone" in Rafah, to which civilians would be moved after security checks to keep out Hamas fighters. Aid would be distributed by private companies.

The Israeli military has yet to comment on the report and did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Residents said massive explosions could now be heard unceasingly from the dead zone where Rafah had once stood as a city of 300,000 people.

"Explosions never stop, day and night, whenever the ground shakes, we know they are destroying more homes in Rafah. Rafah is gone," Tamer, a Gaza City man displaced in Deir Al-Balah, further north, told Reuters by text message.

He said he was getting phone calls from friends as far away as across the border in Egypt whose children were being kept awake by the explosions.

Abu Mohammed, another displaced man in Gaza, told Reuters by text: "We are terrified that they could force us into Rafah, which is going to be like a cage of a concentration camp, completely sealed off from the world."

Israel, which imposed its total blockade on Gaza on March 2, says enough supplies reached the territory in the previous six weeks of the truce that it does not believe the population is at risk. It says it says it cannot allow in food or medicine because Hamas fighters would exploit it.

United Nations agencies say Gazans are on the precipice of mass hunger and disease, with conditions now at their worst since the war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters attacked Israeli communities.

Gaza health officials said on Monday at least 23 people had been killed in the latest Israeli strikes across the Strip.

At least 10, some of them children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia in the north and six were killed in an airstrike on a cafe in the south. Footage circulating on social media showed some victims critically injured as they sat around a table at the cafe.

EATING WEEDS AND TURTLES

Talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt have so far failed to extend the ceasefire, during which Hamas released 38 hostages and Israel released hundreds of prisoners and detainees.

Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in Gaza, fewer than half of them believed to be alive. Hamas says it would free them only under a deal that ended the war; Israel says it will agree only to temporary pauses in fighting unless Hamas is completely disarmed, which the fighters reject.

In Doha, Qatar's prime minister said on Sunday that efforts to reach a new ceasefire in Gaza had made some progress.

On Friday, the World Food Program said it had run out of food stocks in Gaza after the longest closure the Gaza Strip had ever faced.

Some residents toured the streets looking for weeds that grow naturally on the ground, others picked up dry leaves from trees. Desperate enough, fishermen turned to catching turtles, skinning them and selling their meat.

"I went to the doctor the other day, and he said I had some stones in my kidney and I needed surgery that would cost me around $300. I told him I would rather not use painkiller and use the money to buy food for my children," one Gaza City woman told Reuters, asking not to be identified for fear of retribution.

"There is no meat, no cooking gas, no flour, and no life, this is Gaza in simple but painful terms."

The Gaza war started after Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza in the October, 2023 attacks, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's offensive on the enclave killed more than 51,400, according to Palestinian health officials.

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Arab World

Local Official: More Than 500 Die of Hunger in Darfur

A woman prepares food to be distributed to people in need in Khartoum, Sudan, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)
A woman prepares food to be distributed to people in need in Khartoum, Sudan, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)
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Local Official: More Than 500 Die of Hunger in Darfur

A woman prepares food to be distributed to people in need in Khartoum, Sudan, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)
A woman prepares food to be distributed to people in need in Khartoum, Sudan, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)

A local official at a displacement camp in Sudan's western Darfur region said more than 500 people had died from hunger and malnutrition recently, appealing for urgent humanitarian intervention to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Humanitarian conditions in the region continue to deteriorate amid the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Mohammed Yaqoub, a local official at the Tawila displacement camp in North Darfur State, said many displaced families were unable to obtain even the minimum amount of food needed to survive, with conditions claiming the lives of more than 500 people at the camp.

Earlier this week, the General Coordination of Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur announced that hundreds of displaced people had arrived at Tawila camp, which received 1,726 families comprising 8,390 people amid severe shortages of food, water and shelter supplies.

UN and local estimates indicate that more than three million displaced people are currently living in camps across Darfur as a result of the war that erupted in Sudan in April 2023.

Tawila camp is located 60 kilometers from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and continues to receive waves of displaced people, placing growing pressure on humanitarian assistance provided by international and local organizations operating in the area.

Urgent Need for Aid

Yaqoub told Asharq Al-Awsat that nearly 16,000 displaced people had arrived in recent days at camps in the Shangil Tobaya, Kutum and Koma areas of Darfur, amid dwindling supplies of food and drinking water and declining healthcare services due to shortages in international funding.

According to the latest report by UN humanitarian agencies, 34 million people in Sudan are in urgent need of emergency humanitarian assistance, with famine expected to threaten 20 areas across Darfur and Kordofan.

Yaqoub said deaths among pregnant women and children were rising daily at an alarming rate because of shortages of doctors and medicines at the only functioning hospital in the Tawila area. He appealed to health organizations to intervene immediately and provide whatever medical assistance was available to displaced people.

The local official also reported widespread malnutrition among children, along with outbreaks of malaria, dengue fever and chronic illnesses, raising fears of further deaths among women and men, particularly older people.

He warned of the risk of diseases and epidemics spreading as health conditions deteriorate and drinking water and lifesaving medicines remain scarce.

Signs of Famine

Yaqoub told Asharq Al-Awsat that hundreds of displaced people had died from hunger and thirst while traveling to displacement camps in Darfur.

"The severe shortage of humanitarian assistance and the emerging signs of famine, whose effects are beginning to cast a shadow over living conditions in Darfur, threaten the lives of millions of displaced people amid the continuing war and declining humanitarian response," he said.

In a recent report, the General Coordination of Displaced Persons and Refugees, which monitors humanitarian conditions in Darfur, described conditions in the camps as extremely dire, calling for urgent relief assistance and swift international intervention.

The group warned that shortages of food, basic necessities and healthcare were exposing the most vulnerable populations to growing humanitarian risks, including rising death tolls resulting from the humanitarian catastrophe facing the region.

Arab World

Operation Dawn of Yemen Intensifies Air and Ground Strikes to Weaken Houthi Capabilities

Troops from the Southern Giants Brigades on their way to reinforce front lines in western Lahj (Military Media)
Troops from the Southern Giants Brigades on their way to reinforce front lines in western Lahj (Military Media)
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Operation Dawn of Yemen Intensifies Air and Ground Strikes to Weaken Houthi Capabilities

Troops from the Southern Giants Brigades on their way to reinforce front lines in western Lahj (Military Media)
Troops from the Southern Giants Brigades on their way to reinforce front lines in western Lahj (Military Media)

The Yemeni military's Operation Dawn of Yemen entered its tenth day on Wednesday, with some of the fiercest fighting continuing on the front lines in Taiz Governorate in the southwest, as well as in Marib and Al-Jawf.

Air and ground strikes have intensified as government forces say they are seeking to weaken the combat capabilities of the Iran-backed Houthis and cut off their supply lines.

Meanwhile, casualties and displacement continue to rise, placing mounting pressure on hospitals, markets and essential services.

The Yemeni Armed Forces announced that they had carried out 2,200 precision strikes over 24 hours, involving fighter jets, drones, field artillery, rocket launchers and sniper units. They said preliminary battlefield assessments indicated that approximately 1,200 Houthi fighters had been neutralized, while more than 440 military vehicles and other equipment had been destroyed or damaged across various fronts.

Armed Forces spokesperson Col. Majed Al-Nuzaili said the operations focused on command and control centers, fortifications, firing positions, observation and reconnaissance posts, as well as troop assembly areas, weapons and ammunition depots, transportation and supply assets, and what he described as high-value military targets.

He added that government forces had continued to expand their offensive operations on the eastern and southern fronts, making territorial gains under intensive fire support. In Taiz, strikes targeted Houthi fighter concentrations and reinforcements in an effort to disrupt the group's ability to support its positions and regroup its forces.

Field sources say the group is suffering daily casualties, including fighters killed, wounded and captured, among them field commanders. Estimates suggest that approximately 15,000 Houthi fighters have been killed or wounded over the past ten days, although the group has not released a comprehensive casualty toll.

Fighting on Multiple Fronts

In Taiz, fighting in recent hours has been concentrated on fronts south, east and west of the city, with renewed clashes in Al-Aqrud. Military sources reported that battles erupted in Al-Sarari, Dhi al-Birah and Dhahih following Houthi attempts to attack government positions.

The sources said government forces had forced Houthi fighters to retreat from Al-Sarari in the Sabir al-Mawadim district, while airstrikes targeted a gathering and a facility belonging to the group in the Al-Hawban area east of the city.

On the western front, clashes continued around Jabal Han, Al-Sayahi and Jabal Hadhran, within the Al-Dhabab front overlooking the main road leading into the city.

Fighting also spread to the Al-Shaqab and Al-Aqrud fronts southeast of Taiz, coinciding with intensified battles in the Al-Mahawilah and Al-Aghabirah areas along the Al-Waziiyah axis in the southwest of the governorate, as well as continued clashes on the Al-Mudaribah front in neighboring Lahj Governorate.

According to a government statement, military engineering units are working to clear mines and improvised explosive devices from recaptured positions on the western front and secure roads and passageways in an effort to protect civilians and facilitate their return to areas they fled.

Decision to Continue the Operation

On the political front, Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad al-Alimi affirmed that Operation Dawn of Yemen would continue toward its declared objective of ending the Houthi takeover, restoring state institutions and placing weapons and decisions of war and peace exclusively under the authority of constitutional institutions.

In an address marking the 63rd anniversary of the October 14 Revolution, Al-Alimi said the armed forces had performed well since the operation began and that temporary changes on the ground would not deter the state from fulfilling its responsibilities, with support from brotherly and friendly countries.

He added that the Houthi threat was not confined to a particular governorate or region but extended to the security and future of Yemenis in both the north and south. He stressed that developments in Taiz and Marib were closely linked to the security of Aden, Hadramout and the country's other governorates.

Al-Alimi justified the launch of the operation by citing the exhaustion of opportunities for de-escalation and continued Houthi attacks on cities, villages, neighboring countries and international waterways. He stressed that the decision to restore state institutions had taken effect and was irreversible.

Humanitarian Warnings

The expansion of military operations has coincided with international warnings about their impact on civilians, particularly as the number of wounded and displaced people rises and healthcare facilities become increasingly unable to respond to growing needs.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Wednesday that hospitals across Yemen were facing mounting difficulties in coping with a sharp increase in the number of people wounded in the fighting. It noted that some frontline healthcare facilities in Marib, Taiz and along the Red Sea coast had admitted more than 700 wounded patients in a single week.

Firas Abu Samra, the ICRC's health coordinator, said medical teams were under enormous pressure, while only a small proportion of functioning healthcare facilities were capable of providing comprehensive trauma care.

The organization warned of shortages of surgical supplies, anesthetics, oxygen and medicines, as well as the limited capacity of Yemen's already strained healthcare system to cope with another wave of mass casualties should the fighting expand.

On displacement, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that it had recorded 217,303 displaced people, representing 36,216 households, as of October 12. Approximately 55 percent of those displaced were concentrated in Taiz Governorate, while Lahj recorded more than 45,000 affected people and Aden more than 26,000.

The consequences extend beyond displacement and injuries. The United Nations warned of dwindling essential supplies in Taiz, with wheat and flour stocks potentially running out in less than three weeks, according to reports from its humanitarian partners.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said food prices had risen by approximately 50 percent, while gasoline prices had tripled and cooking gas had become largely unavailable. Fuel shortages have also threatened water supplies, amid overcrowded displacement sites, limited access to clean water and inadequate healthcare services.

These conditions are heightening the risk of worsening food insecurity and deteriorating health conditions in a city of more than 1.5 million people, which has endured years of Houthi restrictions on movement and supplies because of the siege imposed on its access routes.

Arab World

Roadside Bomb Kills Iraqi Army Brigadier, Soldier Near Kirkuk

The Iraqi army during operations against ISIS (Ministry of Defense)
The Iraqi army during operations against ISIS (Ministry of Defense)
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Roadside Bomb Kills Iraqi Army Brigadier, Soldier Near Kirkuk

The Iraqi army during operations against ISIS (Ministry of Defense)
The Iraqi army during operations against ISIS (Ministry of Defense)

A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army vehicle killed an Iraqi army brigadier and a soldier near the northern city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, the military said, in the second attack on Iraqi security forces in the area this month.

The bomb struck an army patrol conducting a search operation at an ISIS hideout that Iraqi warplanes had targeted a day earlier, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Kirkuk, according to a military statement.

The attack, which wounded two other soldiers, follows an October 5 assault claimed by ISIS militants southwest of Kirkuk, in which one federal policeman was killed and four others wounded when gunmen armed with machineguns and sniper rifles attacked a federal police position.

The latest incident occurred just weeks after US forces completed their withdrawal from Iraq on September 30, ending their military mission in the country.

Iraqi officials have said ISIS retains sleeper cells capable of carrying out hit-and-run attacks, raising concerns that the militants could seek to exploit security gaps despite continued Iraqi counter-insurgency operations.