Reuters – Dec 15, 2023
With Israeli bombs pounding the length of the Gaza Strip, Gazans have been squeezed up against the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at the town of Rafah and say they have practically nowhere left to flee.
Hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes and, as the bombardment comes closer again, many fear the only option to keep them alive is exile to Sinai.
But they do not want that. They say if that happened, they might never come back.
“There’s no safe place anymore. Now the Israeli ground offensive might expand to here,” said Umm Osama, a 55-year-old woman from Gaza City in the north who has sought shelter in Rafah.
“Where should we go after Rafah?”
Umm Osama and many other displaced Gazans rejected the idea of fleeing across the border, should it become possible.
We refuse displacement to Sinai and we want to return to our homes, even if they are in ruins
she said.
She and other Gazans are haunted by the traumatic exile of their forebears: many of Gaza’s residents are descendents of Palestinians forced to flee their homes after the creation of Israel in 1948.
If they make me choose between living under bombardment and leaving, I’ll stay. I’ll go back, even if tanks are there. I’ll go back to Gaza City and will endure anything
said Umm Imad, a 73-year-old woman also sheltering in Rafah.
Facing weeks of Israeli aerial assault, close-range tank fire and the guns of troops on the ground which Israel said is aimed at hunting down Hamas fighters, some 85 per cent of 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza have been forced towards the south of the besieged enclave.
Israel has told Gaza residents wishing to avoid being caught up in their assault against the Palestinian group, Hamas, that they should head south. Its military bombs southern areas where people have fled.
Northern Gaza was the initial focus of Israel’s assault on the Hamas-controlled territory after the group killed 1,200 Israelis in a brutal 7 October attack and took 240 hostage.
Southern Rafah, strategically important because it holds the only currently functioning crossing into Gaza – one not controlled by Israel, and where aid is being delivered – is the latest area to come under intense bombardment.
‘Nowhere is safe’
Strikes on the Al-Shaboura neighbourhood of Rafah levelled an entire street late on Thursday.
On Friday, men and boys picked through the rubble and stared blankly at caved in houses and their ruined possessions that could not be retrieved.
The strikes left a heap of rubble and twisted metal dotted with blankets and bags, gouged mattresses and sofas spilling out tufts of cotton and polyester, children’s bicycles and kitchenware.
“Nowhere in Gaza is safe,” said Jehad Al-Eid, a resident of the area.
The war between Israel and Palestine is the deadliest ever fighting in Gaza. Israeli assaults have killed some 19,000 people, most of them women and children, Palestinian officials say.
Palestinians and officials in neighbouring Arab countries alike are nervous at the prospect of a mass, long-term displacement of Gazans.
A mass influx into Egypt is currently unlikely.
The exit of Gaza residents has been slow with the choked border crossing struggling to cope with the entry even of aid trucks, which the United Nations says are not nearly enough to cope with a population that has lacked enough medical supplies for weeks and is beginning to go hungry.
Violence continues to kill people in the south of the Strip.
In Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, a father mourned his two sons, aged 17 and 18, whom he said were killed in Israeli shelling yesterday. The tearful father followed their bodies until they were wrapped in shrouds and sent to the morgue.
“They were standing outside the door of the house when a shell hit the neighbours’ house, they went to help and a second shell hit them,” the father, Majdi Shurrab, said.
Shurrab said the bodies were left on the ground because it was difficult for ambulances to reach them to take them to the hospital. The destruction from air strikes has made travel along roads difficult and there are severe fuel shortages across Gaza.
Rescue workers had to carry Shurrab’s sons to hospital by donkey-drawn cart.
Unlike those people, I would of been out of there decades ago.
What is the point in life if you live in fear of bombs? Regardless of it being your land, just move and start a new life. Many did and they are now not in Gaza being terrorized by Jew bombs.
You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
But those who stayed are marytrs who are driving Israel into some kind of end times showdown. Israel is now in some sort of epic death spiral, they can not end the war, they can not win, and they will keep upping the ante until they are under seige from all directions.
I will praise God when Israel gets wiped off the map and that fat bastard John Hagee dies from a heart attack eating Red Heiffer burgers.
Nutenyahu has already said that they will clear the whole middlle east using USA forces
up to 35 milion will be trafficked to europe and the UK unless we UK people stop it
and quickly we will be inundated
Butlins and other holiday camps have ben told be on hold a nd you may get huge numbers coming in in the new year
Such diseases as difetheria measles conshita syndome once aradicated here are back and we have no resistance to them
Whitey is supposed to read this and think of giving the Gazans a home by denying his own people, as usual
Don’t worry about it–all this mongrel scum will be transported to the UK/US/EU/OZ-NZ so they can knife more white kids like in Ireland & setup their ‘sex grooming gangs’ pimping out worthless white trollops.
Important points to make with regard to the oct 7th “Surprize ” Attack. (1) First Israel was aware of the Hamas Buildup for more than a year……and basically through inaction ( probably intentional ) left it alone. Do not forget that Netanyahu was instrumental in the development of Hamas to counteract the PLO. So we have here an Israeli tie into its development. Obviously the Mossad is involved and they would never let it go on by itself. Obviously Hamas has / had Israeli operatives / sleeper cells.
Is Hamas as a functional unit that stupid ? In other words the top Hamas people had to know of a ferocious Israeli response that could potentially level the Gaza if they attacked as they did. Were they hopeful that the taking of the hostagers and perhaps their labyrinth of tunnels could do the job ? Maybe. In any event Mossad cells in this Hamas foray at the upper levels would incite the action as l’agents provcateurs and leave the lower incited action of the program with its on the ground Jihadists.
Do not forget that Hamas broke into Israel not at 1 point but about 20 different points !! Also we have the 6 to 7 hour delay in the full IDF response !!!! Quite a delay in an ultra ultra security state. Even despite the breakup of some communications networks some calls had to have been made to their main units. The attempt to explain this anomaly is either blocked or explained by a series of questionable “mishaps “. The most likely reason is an intentional stand down coordinated from the top so as to maximize the damage and Israeli casualty count to multi hundreds level. In other words another Pearl Harbor so as to incite the population through anger to go to war and wipe out Hamas as well as the Palestinians.
The objectives in this scenario. ….and what better scenario to empty Gaza of the Palestinians in 1 fell swoop !! under the guise of attempting to get all the Hamas insurgents while wiping out the Gazans including women and children….and this could be done perhaps within a year at most…..much quicker than the 75 years since the last Nakba.!!!!
Objectives (1) Clear Gaza for a greater Israel…a wet dream for the Likud and their extreme Zionists (2) A more Direct and unimpeded way to the energy sources (i.e.) Gas in the Gaza area…do not forget that Isarel signed 12 exploration contracts on Oct 29 ( Reuters Oct 30 ) with 6 energy companies which include BP & Eni…just after 3 weeks into the action !! The value of these deposits minimally would be in the area of 500 billion USD !!! (3) A future Ben Gurien canal to compete with the Suez canal & (4)_ Timing of this attack would work very much in favor of Netanyahu as he was politically waning with the Israeli public. At worst if he could pull off this action he would get only a slap on the wrist with a celebrating public !!
I do believe the true face of the present Israe; administration ( Likud party ) is showing its true face. More Jews are turning to the other side. Just check the most violent / distruption actions that are being taken by (1) Not in our name (2) Mondoweiss (3) Jewish Voices (4) Nietra Karta – Hasidic Jews waving Palestinian flags !!!! and other left wing Jewish groups !!
@ Aleister..
Now now…they aren’t ‘worthless trollops’ … current value is about 1litre of gut rot cider and a very small bag of weed…. they don’t give themselves away for nothing…
Not these girls… anyway Ali and Abdul love them… they are like the fathers they never had…
i can never dccide if carl jones is joking or tying to be seious ?
this idea that natzis secretly took over the west after the war is total bullshit
i think like most folk here i will stop reading him
hes justa little twat
get lost jones you twat
Yukon Jack wrote, “Unlike those people, I would of been out of there decades ago.”
Some have been able to escape, but many have been imprisoned without a chance to leave, or without a means to leave and restart elsewhere. It is the largest concentration camp in the world, and it is run by an extremely wicked cabal. For a better explanation, the following article gives background:
https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2015/03/12/shockwaves-part-iii/