Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize.

A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war.

Gaza's health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighbouring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.

They fear that Israel's intention is to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless in one of the poorest and most crowded territories on earth. The security zone includes some of Gaza's last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hundreds-thousands-flee-israel-seizes-rafah-new-gaza-security-zone-2025-04-03/

Posted by Naurgul

3 comments

  1. Lmao, wasn’t one of the arguments from the pro-“Resistance” fools that Hamas was better because they supposedly prevented Israel from occupying Gaza on foot? So far, 30% of the Gaza Strip has already fallen to Israel (and that number is rising fast), better stick to parading coffins.

  3. For anyone under some merry illusion that this is a “war”: Israel’s war crime today is called ethnic cleansing.

    Forcibly removing the population is ethnic cleansing. Seizing land is theft.

    “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” is one element of the definition of the Genocide Convention.

    Anyone defending this is a monster among us.

    That most of the Western world is allowing this is happen and, worse, actively supporting it, only shows how far humanity has descended.

    These will be remembered as some of the worst atrocities of the 21st century. Remember who supported this.

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