After a short gasp, Shahd al-Modallal states flatly: “Oh, there’s a bomb.” An explosion follows. An airstrike has targeted Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town and the most recent destination for the Palestinian enclave’s displaced people.
Tens of thousands of people have arrived in Rafah over the past week since the end of a temporary pause on fighting in Gaza. People are sleeping in the streets, in public buildings and any other available empty space. Schools and evacuation shelters are already full.
Many have come from other parts of southern Gaza where they had previously been told to evacuate by Israel as it prepared its ground invasion in October.
Modallal, who arrived in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, soon after Israeli airstrikes began, says the city is not equipped to take in so many people.
“Rafah is a very small area, it cannot handle very many people. Even for us who already have houses in the area, it’s crowded. It cannot handle all the people coming from Khan Younis and everywhere else. In Gaza, there are 2 million people. Can you imagine them all coming to an area that’s just like a neighbourhood?” he says. “Even my house, it is built for only two families but now we have about seven families living here.”
Nazmi, known online by one name, has uploaded daily updates about life during the war on Snapchat. This week, he posted a video of people in Rafah building basic shelters out of wood and clear plastic sheeting he had bought with online donations.
Another Snapchat user, Maya al-Khadr, posted videos showing how empty spaces between buildings were being converted into shelters – many of them simply plastic sheeting hanging from wooden frames.
Modallal says Rafah was already short of fuel, water and food before thousands more people arrived over the past few days, mostly from Khan Younis, which Israel has declared a combat zone.
Amjed Tantesh, a swimming instructor who had to leave his home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza early in the war, says he has been forced to evacuate again.
“I moved to Rafah three days ago after the ground invasion came close to the house I was staying at in Deir al-Balah. It is more quiet here but the situation is terrible regarding the amount of refugees and lack of food and resources. A real famine,” say Tantesh.
Modallal says she is not just worried about how the tens of thousands of displaced people in Rafah will live without food and water. She worries whether they will survive at all. Despite being told to evacuate to the town, it is not safe, she says.
She has seen and heard airstrikes in the neighbourhood next to her, which she says Israel had identified as a safe zone for evacuees. After being forced out of the rest of Gaza, there is nowhere to turn if the Israeli army continues to target Rafah.
“Rafah will be the last step for us, there is no other plan. It will be death. We don’t know how to act, what decision to take, [what we can do] if they ask us to evacuate a third time, from Rafah,” she says.
