Israel – Gaza: Israeli forces take control of the center of Rafah, the last refuge of more than one million Palestinians

Eyewitnesses and local journalists in Gaza told the BBC that Israeli forces seized the al-Awda crossing in the centre of Rafah on Tuesday.

According to the BBC’s correspondent in the Palestinian territories, Rushdi Abualouf, the al-Awda square is a key area housing Gaza’s main banks, businesses and shops, as well as its government institutions.

A witness, who had taken refuge with his family in an Emirati hospital in the western part of the city, told the BBC that Israeli soldiers had positioned themselves on top of a building overlooking the square and They started shooting at anyone who moved.

According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 46 people have been killed in the territory in the past 24 hours.

This figure brings the total number of deaths in the conflict to 36,096.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that troops were deployed overnight along the Philadelphi Corridor, the thin buffer zone separating Gaza and Egypt.

Before the official statement, eyewitnesses confirmed to the BBC that Israeli forces controlled a 9-kilometre stretch of the corridor.

The IDF command reported that they were “engaging in hand-to-hand combat with terrorists and locating tunnels, weapons and additional terrorist infrastructure in the area.”

Located in the southern part of the Strip and with an area of ​​approximately 55 square kilometers, the city of Rafah was until May the only access to Gaza that was not controlled by Israel.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu transformed the city Your ultimate goal and launched a military operation there as part of its effort to “destroy” Hamas.

Since the start of the current war – triggered by a surprise attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7 that left 1,200 people dead and around 250 taken hostage – Rafah has become the last refuge for more than one million Palestinians who have been displaced from their towns due to shelling and ground incursions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

As a result of the massive arrival of people, Rafah’s population increased from approximately 280,000 inhabitants to approximately 1,400,000 people.

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, called it “the world’s largest displaced persons camp”.

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