Watch view of camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah as Israeli strikes intensify
Watch a view from a camp for displaced people in Rafah on Friday 10 May.
As Israeli forces gather on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city, Palestinians fear another “Nakba”, when 700,000 of them were permanently driven from their homes at the creation of Israel in 1948.
Many people in Rafah, where over one million have been sheltering as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip in its war with Hamas, have been displaced several times over as the anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, approaches on 15 May.
Israeli military strikes have killed at least 60 people and wounded 110 others across the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours, the territory’s Hamas-controlled health ministry said.
The United Nations, Gaza residents and aid groups say further Israeli incursions into Rafah will result in a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel says it must hit Rafah to defeat thousands of Hamas fighters it says are holed up there. But the city is also a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled combat farther north.