With ‘All eyes on Rafah’, where are millions of Palestinians fleeing amid Israeli strikes?
Israel's airstrikes on Gaza have led to a growing movement questioning if this is Nakba 2.0, as Palestinians are displaced once again. With record numbers killed, people in Rafah are fleeing south to survive the genocidal mission.
All eyes on Rafah: While Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel pounds southern Gaza's Rafah with incessant airstrikes, killing over 45 people in the tiny strip of land, a more pertinent question comes to mind – where are the millions of Palestinians fleeing?
When Israel started the genocidal mission in retaliation to a Hamas attack on October 7, Palestinians were asked to move to South Gaza.
Palestinians had started making the move to southern Gaza to survive. Only months later, Israel continued its airstrike and ground operation in central and south Gaza – every time asking Palestinians to move further south.
Israel has defended their operation by stating that their mission 'only' aims to destroy Hamas fighters. However, over thirty thousand Palestinians have lost their lives in the airstrikes, including thousands of children.
Some of those Palestinians have managed to survive the months of airstrike and are making the eighth move, with what little is left of their belongings and life to survive.
On Tuesday, the phrase, 'All eyes on Rafah', flooded social media as several people from across the world came out in support of Palestinians residing in the Rafah city located in war-torn Gaza.
Israel airstrikes the last left safe zone- Rafah
Rafah, a city near the Palestinian territory’s southern border with Egypt, has been under Israeli ground assault since early May. Israel launched an air strike on the so-called “safe area” in Rafah. It was inflicted on an encampment of makeshift shelters just north of Rafah city, in an area called Tal as-Sultan.
The Gaza Government Media Office said Israel dropped seven 900kg bombs as well as missiles on the displacement camp. Refugees were left looking for their loved ones, digging through ash, as civilians sheltering in the Tal as-Sultan area were burnt alive in those shelters.
Where are Palestinians from Gaza fleeing?
Largely, Palestinians have fled or been displaced from various areas in Gaza. Many have sought refuge in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, according to local media reports.
Additionally, some have migrated further afield, seeking asylum or resettlement in Europe, North America, and other regions.
However, since Israel inflated its attacks on Gaza, making it genocidal, Palestinians in Gaza have had one question on their minds – ‘where to go?’
North Gaza to South Gaza to Rafah to..?
Hundreds of people braved roads in Rafah in southern Gaza as they fled Israel’s expanding ground assault, with increased shelling, tanks in the city centre, and forces positioned on higher ground.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that around one million civilians had fled Rafah since the ground attack went ahead despite a chorus of international warnings.
ALSO READ: UN Security Council convenes emergency meeting after deadly Israeli strike on Gaza camp kills 45
AFP reporters have seen people carry their belongings and flee western Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan, where a strike that Israel said targeted Hamas killed 45 people
Some were seen transporting piles of mattresses and blankets and dozens of children on the back of trucks.
Others carried what they could in rubbish bags or walked with rolled-up mattresses on their heads.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, AFP reporters saw piles of pillows, mattresses and bags of clothes covering a sandy area where people fleeing Rafah had settled.
Is this Nakba 2.0?
"Exist, resist, return!" A chant that roared at events this month to mark Nakba Day on May 15 seems to have made a return with Israel's airstrikes on Gaza. Nakba Day commemorates the displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 during the founding of Israel.
With record numbers of Palestinians killed and displaced once again throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, a growing movement online is asking – is this Nakba 2.0?
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