U.N. humanitarian agencies say both the Rafah and Karem Shalom crossings into the Gaza Strip are “closed to goods and people” in both directions, essentially cutting off a lifeline for more than 2 million civilians in the embattled Palestinian territory.
“We currently have no physical presence at the Rafah crossing as our access to go to that area for coordination has been denied by COGAT,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. COGAT is the Israeli agency that coordinates government activities in the Palestinian territories.
“That means that the two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza have been choked off,” he said.
“We are seeing the beginning of a military incursion. Rafah is in the crosshairs. IDF is ignoring all warnings about what this could mean for civilians — and the humanitarian operation — in Rafah and the entire strip,” he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Laerke told journalists in Geneva Tuesday that Rafah is the only entry point for fuel, noting that without diesel for trucks to transport aid inside Gaza, and without fuel to run generators, equipment, and communication, “the entire aid operation is in jeopardy.”
“We have been told that there is about one day of fuel available for all of Gaza,” he said. “If no fuel comes in for a long, prolonged period of time, it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave.”
Israel ordered 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate eastern Rafah Monday to so-called safe zones, in advance of a military offensive in the southern Gaza city. This, despite Hamas agreeing Monday to a truce proposal that would see some Israeli hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office said the cease-fire proposal was “far from Israel’s essential demands,” but that Israel would send negotiators to Cairo on Tuesday to continue talks.
The United Nations says that the IDF has designated 76% of Gaza’s territory as “an evacuation zone.” That, it warns, will have terrible repercussions for the 1.2 million people in Rafah as many of the obligations enshrined in international humanitarian law governing evacuation orders are not being met.
“What this means in humanitarian terms is that people are being forcibly relocated, yet again, sometimes for the fourth, fifth, sixth time, to places that are not safe,” said Ravina Shamdasani, U.N. human rights spokesperson.
“These people include people who have been disabled as a result of the conduct of hostilities,” she said. “They are being relocated to places that do not have the infrastructure or the resources to be able to host the mass displacement of this large number of people with such diverse needs.
“Israel has strict obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the safety and access of these individuals to medical care, to adequate food, to sanitation,” she said. “Failure to meet these obligations may amount to forced displacement, which is a war crime.”
UNICEF warns that a military incursion in Rafah “would pose catastrophic risks” to hundreds of thousands of children sheltering in the enclave.
“Rafah is a city of children. More than half of every single girl and boy in Gaza live in Rafah,” said James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson.
“Our worst fear — Gazans’ nightmare — appears to be a reality,” he said. “If we define safety — as International Humanitarian Law says we must — as freedom from bombardment, as well as access to safe water, sufficient food, shelter and medicine —then there is nowhere safe on the Gaza strip to go to.
“Families’ coping capacity has been smashed. They are hanging on — physically and psychologically — by a thread,” he said. “People are exhausted. People are malnourished. Children are sick.
“In fact, hundreds of thousands of children in Rafah have a disability or vulnerability that puts them in even greater jeopardy and makes it that much more difficult for them to relocate, even if there was somewhere left to go.”
The World Health Organization says only three hospitals currently are functioning in the Rafah area and “all are overwhelmed” and receiving more cases than they can handle.
WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said Israel has advised people in El-Najar hospital in Rafah to leave. “Now they are not moving. They are staying open and continuing to accept patients,” she said.
“They are also the only place now in Gaza where dialysis is taking place. They are doing around 200 dialyses per day. So, again, if they are no longer functioning if they are shut down, it means that those people will die simply from kidney failure because that is what is keeping them alive.”
UNICEF’s Elder said children in Gaza are suffering from “an unprecedented level of trauma,” especially after this weekend’s events, which saw the continued killing of children, more attacks from the warring parties, “and now evacuation orders.”
“That is what we are seeing again in these children who are told pick up your last surviving remnants of your life and we move from tent to tent. That is also what is happening to children in Rafah now.
“That has to change. Indeed, this is the last chance for this to change,” he said.
