After the Israeli bombing targeted the tents of displaced people in UNRWA camps west of Rafah, the clashes moved to the center of the city, which was crowded with displaced people.
Al-Arabiya / Al-Hadath correspondent reported on Tuesday that Israeli tanks, which advanced earlier today towards the center of Rafah, bombed Al-Awda Roundabout.
He also indicated that clashes broke out in the area between Israeli forces and armed Palestinian factions.
He explained that the massive displacement movement is continuing from the west of Rafah, after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left the east of the city weeks ago.
Tanks downtown
In turn, eyewitnesses confirmed that several Israeli tanks arrived in central Rafah three weeks after the start of a ground operation in the city located in the southern Gaza Strip.
Witnesses reported that they saw tanks near Al Awda Mosque, which is one of the main landmarks in central Rafah, according to Reuters.
Million people fled
At the same time, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced that about one million people fled Rafah during the past three weeks. She added that the reason for displacement is the lack of a safe place to go amid the bombing, food and water shortages, waste accumulation, and inappropriate living conditions.
She also stressed that providing aid and protection has become almost “impossible.”
It is noteworthy that the small city of Rafah, located on the southern end of the Strip, was sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled Israeli attacks on other parts of the Strip.
Since early May, the Israeli army has been carrying out what it says is a limited operation in Rafah to kill militants and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas.
While he ordered civilians to go to an “expanded humanitarian area” in Al-Mawasi, about 20 kilometers away, that area was also targeted last Sunday, leaving more than 45 people dead, most of them children and women.
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