The invasion of Rafah, Israel’s latest operation that condemns thousands of Gazans to an impossible escape

On January 6, 2024, a United Nations assessment concluded that there was “nowhere safe” in Gaza. Not even Rafah, the southernmost city in the Strip, designated as a “safe zone” by Israel, despite the fact that it has never stopped bombing it. Already then, 1.5 million of the 2.3 million Gazans were crowded into that town and its governorate, an area of ​​65 square kilometers next to the border with Egypt. In early February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the invasion of that city. That ground offensive, which the UN has warned could lead to an “unspeakable tragedy,” has since been a sword of Damocles on these displaced Palestinians.

Last Monday, the threat began to materialize with the order given to some 100,000 people, according to Israel, to move to supposed “safe areas” of the Palestinian enclave. This Tuesday, Israeli tanks took the Rafah border crossing, the only one that Israel did not fully control until now. “An assault on Rafah would be a strategic error, a political calamity and a humanitarian nightmare,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres.

Why take Rafah now?

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that his country “has no choice” but to invade Rafah. The day before, Hamas had rejected in the last negotiating round in Cairo a truce to free the 132 Israeli hostages still in the Strip that did not include the main condition of the Palestinian movement: a definitive ceasefire. On Sunday, the fundamentalist group had attacked a military garrison near the Kerem Shalom border crossing and killed four Israeli soldiers. That same day, Israel closed the Jerusalem headquarters of the Al Jazeera network.

According to The New York Times, it was Netanyahu’s insistence that he would invade Rafah that led the group to harden its stance. Late on Monday, a statement from Hamas political chief Ismail Haniya indicated that the movement had finally approved a proposed ceasefire agreement, which Israel said it would study. Shortly after, Netanyahu assured that the offensive in Rafah was continuing and this Tuesday the tanks arrived at the city’s border crossing with Egypt. The Israeli prime minister defends that that town is the bastion of what remains of the Hamas structure and where the Israeli hostages who remain, alive or dead, in Gaza are held captive. His far-right government partners have threatened to withdraw their support if he does not invade the Palestinian city.

What consequences could this invasion have?

In the Rafah governorate, whose population was about 220,000 people before the war that began on October 7, 1.5 million Palestinians are now crowded into 65 square kilometers. 80% live in tents or under plastic, with hardly any food, drinking water, sanitation or medical care. On May 3, United Nations humanitarian coordination spokesman Jens Laerke warned that a ground attack on Rafah would carry the “imminent risk of death” for hundreds of thousands of people. Another consequence would be “an incredible blow for the humanitarian operation throughout the Strip, because it is managed mainly from Rafah.” The World Health Organization has warned that such an operation would be a “bloodbath” and would further paralyze “an already broken health system.” Of the seven partially functioning hospitals in southern Gaza, three are in Rafah. Until now, the vast majority of trucks with humanitarian aid for the Strip entered through the border post of this town and that of Kerem Shalom, both closed.

Are there safe areas for displaced people in Gaza?

What Israel calls the “expanded humanitarian zone” of Al Mawasi, where it has ordered the displaced people of Rafah to go – along with the almost destroyed Khan Yunis – is a coastal strip 12 kilometers long and one kilometer wide that already before The war lacked services. Part of Al Mawasi was invaded by the Israeli army on January 22, when it had already been designated as a refuge. Rafah was also until now described as a “safe zone” despite being shelled almost daily. An investigation by the organization Forensic Architecture has denounced that these “safe areas” in Gaza not only “lack the basic infrastructure to house, feed and medically care for such a number of civilians,” but what Israel defines as its “humanitarian policies” ” in Gaza function as “a tool of mass displacement, pushing civilians into uninhabitable areas that are then attacked, increasing Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian population.”

Are massive population movements legal?

Israel is the occupying power in Gaza, according to the UN. The IV protocol of the Geneva Convention stipulates: “Mass or individual transfers of a forcible nature” are prohibited, “whatever the reason.” Even in the few exceptions provided for in this rule, it is specified: “the occupying power must act, when carrying out such transfers or evacuations, so that, to the extent possible, the protected persons are accommodated in adequate facilities, which the movements “are carried out under satisfactory conditions of health, hygiene, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated.”

What have been the reactions to the Rafah eviction order?

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, reiterated this Monday to Netanyahu his “clear position” on the offensive in Rafah. Washington does not oppose the invasion itself, but it does make it conditional on his ally presenting a “credible” plan to protect civilians. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, has urged the EU to act to prevent this invasion, which he has called “unacceptable”, while UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric read a statement this Monday in which he reiterated what had already been announced. by the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA): the organization will not participate in any massive and “involuntary” displacement of the population. The great Sunni regional power, Saudi Arabia, with which Israel aspired to establish diplomatic relations before the war, has condemned the invasion in a harsh statement in which it refers to the Israeli offensive as “genocide”, for the first time since the start of the fight.

Follow all the international information onFacebook andxor inour weekly newsletter.

_