Rafah
Updated 2024-08-29
2024-06-12 Despite Mainstream Headlines, Israel’s Tents Massacre Was Not a ‘Tragic Mistake’ Most establishment U.S. media repeated Israel’s false claims that the tents massacre was an accident, weaving disinformation messaging into toned-down descriptions of the scene.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, Israel bombed starving Gazan refugees crowded in tents in Rafah, where Israel had told them to go. As Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch, 5/31/24) wrote, leaflets dropped in Rafah a few days before told them to go to “Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” an area set up by the UNRWA refugee agency and designated a United Naitons humanitarian safe zone. The leaflet added, “Don’t blame us after we warned you.”
Nevertheless, without warning, Israel hit the camp with at least eight missiles spreading fire though the encampment of plastic tents (Quds News, 5/26/24). Some refugees burned to death, mostly women and children, leaving them dismembered and charred.
The world saw the terror of the massacre on international and social media. Images showed the area of the strike engulfed in flames as Palestinians screamed, cried, ran for safety, and sought to help the injured. “They told people to move there then killed them,” Richard Medhurst (5/28/24) posted.https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tents-massacre-not-mistake
2024-06-07 The Rafah Tents Massacre Exemplifies Israeli and US Disdain for Palestinian Life This reality is a disastrous tragedy for Palestinians, defining the United States for generations in a negative light and ultimately harming Washington’s soft power and any genuine effort to do good in the region.
Palestinians have long been melted down into various data points, often relegating them to vague and dehumanizing categories in the so-called “modern” world. Israel’s latest invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza and the May 26 massacre of roughly 45 Palestinians—where most were burned alive in the strike on their displacement tents—exemplifies this reality as Israeli leaders and the United States continue to show disdain for Palestinian life. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tents-massacre-palestinian-life
2024-05-26 Israel’s war on Gaza live news: ‘More than 30’ killed in Rafah strike An Israeli army bombed a displacement camp in northern Rafah, killing at least 35 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry says.
The Hamas military wing launches a missile attack on Tel Aviv, triggering alarm sirens. Earlier, the Qassam Brigades said its fighters “killed and captured” an unidentified number of Israeli soldiers in Jabalia camp. The Israeli military has denied the claim. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/26/israels-war-on-gaza-live-news-hamas-claims-capture-of-israeli-troops
2024-05-26 What’s happened in Gaza since ICJ ordered Israel stop Rafah assault? Israel has continued to bomb Rafah despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Friday that ordered Israel to halt its military operation in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/5/26/whats-happened-in-gaza-since-icj-ordered-israel-stop-rafah-assault
2024-05-21 UNRWA says food distribution in Rafah suspended, citing insecurity The UN agency for Palestinian refugees also cited a lack of supplies as Israel continues closure of border crossings. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says that food distribution in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah has been suspended due to a lack of supplies and insecurity in the densely populated city.
UNRWA said in a statement on X on Tuesday that only seven of its 24 health centres were operational and that it had not received any medical supplies in the past 10 days due to “closures/disruptions” at the Rafah and the Karem Abu Salem – known in Israel as Kerem Shalom – crossings into Gaza.https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/21/unrwa-says-food-distribution-in-rafah-suspended-citing-insecurity
2024-05-13 Palestine Post: Rafah Invasion and the Student Intifada in the DMV As with most Mondays, we spend this hour on the latest in Palestine. We talk about the latest updates about the siege on Rafah with Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East analyst and directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. And then, a look at the student activism sweeping the US with the latest and what happened to the encampments in Washington DC. We’ll be joined by Thandiwe Abdullah, a student organizer at Howard University with Students for Justice in Palestine. https://kpfa.org/episode/law-disorder-may-13-2024/
2024-05-06 ‘This Is a Crime Against Humanity’: 600,000 Children in Line of Fire as IDF Moves on Rafah Humanitarian organizations and United Nations officials are warning that the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children—nearly all of whom are sick, injured, or malnourished—are in grave danger as Israeli forces on Monday moved to forcibly evacuate the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah ahead of an expected ground invasion.
An estimated 600,000 children are believed to be sheltering in Rafah in terrible conditions and under the near-constant threat of Israeli airstrikes, which rocked the city and killed dozens of people—including at least eight kids—hours before the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued its evacuation directives.
“They’re being told to move, quote unquote, to a ‘humanitarian zone.’ That’s a unilaterally declared humanitarian zone,” James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said in a BBC appearance Monday. “That’s not a humanitarian zone where humanitarians have been able to provide the services they need to. I’ve been talking to colleagues and friends in Rafah this morning, and they’re terrified.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/rafah-children-idf
2024-05-15 Rafah Invasion Goes to Court at the ICJ; Plus, the Student Movement for Palestine George Bisharat, Professor Emeritus at University of California College of Law, San Francisco. His research and writing focus on international legal aspects of Palestine/Israel and on U.S. policies toward the Middle East.
Ali Winston is an independent reporter covering criminal justice, privacy, and surveillance.
Suzanne Ali, law student and organizer with Palestinian Youth Movement. https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-may-15-2024/
2024-05-07 Cutting Off Lifeline for Starving Gazans, Israel Seizes Control of Rafah Crossing “This has devastating impacts for the people of Gaza who are already on the verge of famine,” said the UNRWA’s director of planning.
With tanks and ground forces, the Israeli military seized control of the Gaza side of Rafah’s border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, cutting off a critical humanitarian aid route as much of the enclave’s population faces imminent famine.
Israel’s takeover of the Rafah crossing came hours after the country’s military ordered more than 100,000 people in the southern Gaza city to evacuate ahead of a ground assault, which is moving forward after the right-wing Israeli government rejected a cease-fire proposal accepted by Hamas. Cease-fire negotiations mediated by Egypt and Qatar are expected to continue in the coming days. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-rafah-border-crossing
2024-05-06 Sanders Says US Must ‘End All Offensive Military Aid’ as Israel Targets Rafah As Israel rejected a cease-fire deal that Hamas had accepted Monday, dashing the hopes of civilianstrapped in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that an invasion could be averted, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the Biden administration to stop the looming attack that humanitarian and rights organizations have been warning against for months.
The Vermont independent senator said President Joe Biden must follow through on his call for Israel to protect civilian lives by forgoing a ground invasion of Rafah. In March Biden said the attack would be a “red line” unless Israel developed a credible plan to evacuate civilians, who include an estimated 600,000 children in the city.
To stop Israel from killing potentially hundreds of thousands of people in the city, where 1.4 million people are sheltering following Israel’s obliteration of cities across Gaza, the U.S. must “end all offensive military aid” to the country, Sanders said Monday. https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-2668176062
2024-05-01 57 House Dems Call On Biden to Prevent Israeli Assault on Rafah Dozens of U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday joined Congresswomen Pramila Jayapal and Madeleine Dean in pressuring President Joe Biden to prevent a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that’s now full of over a million displaced Palestinians.
“We write with urgency to say: an offensive invasion into Rafah by Israel in the upcoming days is wholly unacceptable,” states the letter from Jayapal (D-Wash.), Dean (D-Pa.), and 55 other members of Congress. “We welcome your administration’s efforts to dissuade the Israeli government from this military operation, which would deepen both the humanitarian catastrophe for people in Gaza and the strategic challenges that regional and global stakeholders face in this conflict.”
“We now urge you to enforce U.S. law and policy by withholding certain offensive weaponry or other military support that can be used for an assault on Rafah, including the offensive weaponry and aid already signed into law,” the letter continues. https://www.commondreams.org/news/rafah-gaza-strip
2024-03-11 UN Chief Warns Rafah Invasion Would Plunge Gazans Into ‘Even Deeper Circle of Hell’ United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres marked the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Monday by reiterating his call for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and warning against a ground invasion of Rafah, a small city near the Egyptian border in which more than 1.5 million people are sheltering.
“My strongest appeal today is to honor the spirit of Ramadan by silencing the guns—and removing all obstacles to ensure the delivery of lifesaving aid at the speed and massive scale required,” said Guterres. “At the same time—and in the Ramadan spirit of compassion—I call for the immediate release of all hostages.”
The U.N. chief described the level of death and destruction that the Israeli military has inflicted on Gaza since October as unprecedented during his seven-year tenure as secretary-general. Most of the territory’s population is displaced, over 60% of housing has been destroyed or damaged, and at least 21 children have died of malnutrition and dehydration. https://www.commondreams.org/news/guterres-rafah-invasion
2024-03-06 What a Leaked US Cable Says About Israel’s Looming Assault on Rafah An Israeli invasion of Rafah would have “catastrophic” consequences for the 1.5 million civilians sheltering in the southern Gazan city, a U.S. diplomatic cable has warned.
The cable, written by members of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), was sent from Jerusalem to the State Department in Washington, D.C. on Monday and reported by The Intercept on Tuesday.
“A potential escalation of military operations in within Southern Gaza’s Rafah Governorate could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response, multiple relief actors have warned USAID’s Levant Disaster Assistance Response Team,” the cable reads. “A ‘military incursion’ into a tent city of unarmed civilians is a horrifying, psychopathic action.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/leaked-cable-rafah-invasion
2024-03-01 The World Must Act to Prevent the Invasion of Rafah If the international community does not finally develop the will to stop Israel, this horrific crime will, by far, prove worse than all the crimes that have already been committed. Currently, there are anywhere between 1.3 to 1.5 million people in Rafah, an area that, before the war started, had a population of merely 200,000 people.
The Palestinian city of Rafah is not just older than Israel, it is as old as civilization itself. It has existed for thousands of years. The Canaanites referred to it as Rafia, and Rafia has been almost always there, guarding the southern frontiers of Palestine, ancient and modern. As the gateway between two continents and two worlds, Rafah has been at the forefront of many wars and foreign invasions, from ancient Egyptians to the Romans, to Napoleon and his eventually vanquished army.
Now, it is Benjamin Netanyahu’s turn. The Israeli prime minister has made Rafah the jewel of his crown of shame, the battle that would determine the fate of his genocidal war in Gaza—in fact the very future of his country. “Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are essentially telling us: ‘Lose the war,’” he said at a press conference on February 17. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/prevent-rafah-invasion
2024-02-15 Peace Group Urges Biden to Prevent ‘Catastrophic’ Israeli Assault on Rafah The head of a leading U.S.-based peace group on Thursday joined the growing chorus of voices imploring the Biden administration to do everything in its power to pressure the Israeli government to prevent an Israel Defense Forces ground invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza city where 1.5 million Palestinian war refugees and residents with nowhere to go are bracing for the worst.
“A full-scale attack on Rafah would be catastrophic and the Biden administration must use every tool at their disposal to stop it from taking place,” said Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti. https://www.commondreams.org/news/rafah-invasion-2667290725
2024-02-13 The Stakes of Rafah Over the past several months, the Israeli military has gradually forced about 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza to the city of Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Now, the Palestinians displaced to what Israel has called a safe zone are under severe risk of Israeli bombardment and a military ground campaign. Many of the refugees have been displaced several times since Israel began its military operation in Gaza in October.
During Sunday night’s Super Bowl, Israel launched airstrikes on Rafah that killed at least 67 people, among the some 28,000 Palestinians killed since October. This comes after Israel conducted several other deadly military strikes in Rafah in recent days. Israel has claimed that the operations are necessary to eliminate Hamas, which it believes to be active in the border city. It’s difficult, however, to square this extreme and seemingly indiscriminate violence with what Israeli officials have said is a shift toward a new, lower-intensity phase of the war.
The Rafah crossing is where most humanitarian aid enters the occupied Palestinian territory. Israel pushed Palestinians from their homes in northern and central Gaza to the south, and they are enduring a humanitarian catastrophe. https://prospect.org/world/2024-02-13-stakes-of-rafah/
2024-02-08 Expanded Rafah Assault Would Be ‘Stain on Israel’ and Its Backers: Refugee Group Accusing Israel of waging war on a “gigantic refugee camp” where more than 1 million Palestinians have moved to escape air and ground attacks over the last four months, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council on Thursday called on the Israel Defense Forces to stop its shelling of the southern Gaza city of Rafah and halt further plans for an intensified assault.
With Israeli military officials reporting that they have not devised a plan to protect civilian lives in Rafah, NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland said that a ground offensive in the city—previously designated a “safe zone” where more than 1 million Palestinians were told to go as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched air and ground attacks across the enclave—would be a “stain on both Israel and those nations providing arms,” including the United States.
“It would be a bloodbath, and among children and women, among the innocent,” Egeland told CNN, adding that reports of Hamas’ tactic of “blending in with civilians… does not in any way justify indiscriminate attacks.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-attacks-rafah
2024-02-06 UN Warns of Israeli War Crimes as Rafah Invasion Looms Any Israeli invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza could lead to “war crimes,” a United Nations official warned on Tuesday. The warning comes as Israel has signaled its intent to move on the city on the Egyptian border, where around half of Gaza’s population is now seeking refuge.
“We as the U.N. and member states of the U.N. can bear witness,” U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva, according toUN News. “We can make clear what the law says… under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-invasion-rafah-war-crimes
2024-02-05 Palestinian Groups Warn of Catastrophe as Israeli Forces Close in on Rafah A coalition of Palestinian human rights groups issued a joint statement Monday warning of impending catastrophe as Israel’s military signaled plans to expand its ground assault to Rafah, the small city near Gaza’s border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge from Israeli bombs. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq appealed to the international community to intervene and prevent an attack on Rafah, warning that an Israeli incursion “would significantly exacerbate the ongoing genocidal acts perpetrated by the Israeli military and authorities against the Palestinian population in Gaza and blatantly violates the provisional measures order issued by the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024.”
Roughly half of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million is currently in Rafah, with many living in makeshift tents and struggling to survive without adequate food, medicine, and clean water. The city is so crowded that humanitarian relief officials have said there is just one toilet for every 500 people, conditions that are accelerating the spread of infectious diseases. https://www.commondreams.org/news/rafah-gaza-israel
2024-02-03 ‘Pressure Cooker of Despair’: UN, EU ‘Deeply Concerned’ about Rafah Invasion Israeli occupation forces intensified their attacks last night in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as their fighter jets struck three homes, killing 24 and wounding dozens, the Ministry of Health announced. Rafah is densely populated with displaced people from all around the besieged Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the Israeli army was preparing to move to Rafah. However, Israeli media reported on Saturday that Tel Aviv had pledged to Egypt it would not start an operation in Rafah before reducing its population. According to the Israeli media, the Israeli government would move the displaced people to Khan Yunis or Deir Al-Balah and not back to the northern part of Gaza. https://www.palestinechronicle.com/pressure-cooker-of-despair-un-eu-deeply-concerned-about-rafah-invasion/
2024-02-03 Nowhere Left to Flee: Rafah to Become Israel’s New Battlefield in Gaza War Israeli forces shelled the outskirts of the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip on Friday, where the displaced population, penned against the border fence in their hundreds of thousands, feared a new assault with nowhere left to flee. More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are now homeless and crammed into Rafah. Tens of thousands more have arrived in recent days, carrying belongings in their arms and pulling children on carts, since Israeli forces last week launched one of the biggest assaults of the war to capture adjacent Khan Yunis, the main southern city. If the Israeli tanks keep coming, “we will be left with two choices: stay and die or climb the walls into Egypt,” said Emad, 55, a businessman and father of six, reached on a mobile phone chat app. “Most of Gaza’s population are in Rafah. If the tanks storm in, it will be a massacre like never before during this war.” https://www.palestinechronicle.com/nowhere-left-to-flee-rafah-to-become-israels-new-battlefield-in-gaza-war/
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