Gaza (TIP): Tens of thousands of Palestinians attempt to flee Rafah as Israel shells eastern area of city sheltering some 1.5 million people, Al Jazeera reports. Israel’s continued closure of the Rafah border crossing is “choking off the entry of life-saving aid into Gaza”, Al Jazeera said quoting the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Guardian, citing UN officials said that more than 100,000 people have fled Rafah after Israel intensified its bombardment.
The Guardian said that humanitarian officials are tracking the number of people fleeing Rafah where more than 1 million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have been sheltering.
The numbers are expected to rise, with deep concern among aid officials on Thursday that the newly displaced people will end up in makeshift encampments without any services, living in the rubble of their former homes without “basic essentials necessary for life”, The Guardian said.
There are roughly 200 Palestinians that are being forcibly displaced from Rafah every hour, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on May 8.
According to The Associated Press, the past three days, streams of people on foot or in vehicles have jammed the roads out of Rafah in a confused evacuation, their belongings piled high in cars, trucks and donkey carts. All the while, Israeli bombardment has boomed and raised palls of smoke.
“The war has caught up with us even in schools. There is no safe place at all,” said Nuzhat Jarjer. Her family packed on Wednesday to leave a UN school-turned-shelter in Rafah that was rapidly emptying of the hundreds who had lived there for months, AP report said.
Professor John Maynard, a surgeon from the UK who has spent the last two weeks operating on Palestinians in Gaza, highlighted complications from a direct result of malnutrition, reports Middle East Eye.
“I had two patients, 16 and 18, both of whom had survivable injuries, [and] both of whom died last week as a direct result of malnutrition.”
His colleague Dr Kahler, according to Middle East eye, also spoke of a “tipping point” after six-eight months, “the immunological system breaks down”.
“It is at that time when infections and complications from malnutrition will start,” he added.
A famine, one aid worker explained, requires three thresholds: a sustained, severe lack of access to food, high levels of child malnutrition, and highly elevated mortality as a result of famine and disease.
All thresholds have been passed in the north.
“If there is a Rafah invasion, this will certainly push things past the tipping point, and we will see a skyrocketing mortality related to the famine,” he was quoted as saying by the report.
Israel on Monday issued evacuation orders for eastern parts of the city, home to some 100,000. It then sent tanks to seize the nearby Rafah crossing with Egypt, shutting it down.
At least 34,904 Palestinians have been killed and 78,514 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since October 7, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Thursday. (AP)