Israel is active throughout Rafah and 25 people were killed in attacks
Gaza/Jerusalem (EFE).- The Israeli army intensified its attacks and infiltrations in the central part of the southern Gaza city of Rafah as well as in its western part; according to medical sources, attacks on shops of displaced persons resulted in at least 25 deaths – no cause was given – and heavy destruction in residential neighborhoods.
As Palestinian sources confirmed to EFE, the attacks are now concentrated in Al Ouda in Rafah city center and Tal al Sultan, a neighborhood in the northwest. The southern and eastern areas are already under Israeli control, a few weeks after Israeli tanks began their incursion into the city on May 6.
Rafah as an area of operations for Israeli forces
“The entire city of Rafah is a zone of Israeli military operations,” Rafah Mayor Ahmed al-Sofi said today in a statement released on Telegram by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. “The city is facing a humanitarian disaster and people are dying inside their tents because of the Israeli bombing.”
Sofi said there are no functioning medical centres in the city and that residents and displaced people – around 65,000 people according to UNRWA, although before the military incursion there were 1.4 million Gazans who were refugees in Rafah – cannot meet their daily needs for food and water.
As local sources told EFE, the third point of intense military activity remains the so-called Philadelphia corridor, a 14-kilometer border line with Egypt that Israel wants to control, according to military sources, in order to cut the network of tunnels that supply Hamas and help it both to retreat and attack.
The area is facing complete destruction of infrastructure, and a kind of buffer strip has been created, as in the Saudi quarter of Rafah (west), where army engineering units are blowing up residential buildings.
Children who have no will to live
According to the Ministry of Health, since this morning, at least 25 Gazans have been killed and 50 injured following Israeli bombardment against displaced persons’ tents in Al Mawasi, northwest of Rafah, an incident which the Israeli military claims to be unaware of after a preliminary investigation but says it is investigating.
In northern Gaza City, at least 17 Gazans were killed: ten after Israeli warplanes bombed a house in Beach Camp, five municipal officials in an attack in the city center and two others in attacks in the Zeitun neighborhood, the Palestinian agency Wafa reported.
Also, according to Palestinian sources, two more Gazans lost their lives today in the Khirbet al-Adas neighborhood, north of the city of Rafah, bringing the total death toll in the eight-and-a-half month Israeli offensive to 37,470.
In the north, food and nutrition shortages remain a serious issue. According to UN data from 1 to 18 July, only 28 of the 61 coordinated humanitarian aid missions in northern Gaza – 46% – were facilitated by Israeli authorities, details the UN Agency for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“The absence of healthy food and drinking water accelerates the spread of diseases,” Hossam Abu Safia, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the Strip, warned in a statement today. “We have not received any essential supplies in the northern Gaza Strip, especially food for children.”
catastrophic humanitarian situation
The reality in the enclave is that only a small minority can afford to eat regularly, given the scarcity or unaffordable prices of food. Many make it once a day and milk and baby food are in short supply, grassroots organisations report. In addition, fuel shortages force people to burn plastic or wood for cooking.
Some diseases are re-emerging, such as hepatitis and gastro-enteritis.
“We can only offer some medical solutions for the malnourished children,” added Hossam Abu Safia. “We demand the entry of fuel, food and medical supplies.”
For its part, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) today warned of the psychological trauma the war is causing to Gaza’s children, some of whom do not want to continue living amid so much death.
“What we are seeing especially in young children are signs of depression because they have lost everything. They have lost their parents, their siblings, their home, their toys, everything that made their daily lives normal,” the organization said in a statement.