Death or scaling the wall to Egypt – Gaza citizens fear Israeli attack on Rafah

Rafah (Quds News Network) – Over the last hours, Israeli occupation forces carried out airstrikes on the outskirts of the city of Rafah in the southernmost region of the Gaza Strip. The escalation has stoked fears among displaced individuals, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, gathered near the border fence with Egypt of a potential new attack, with no safe haven remaining for them.
More than half of Gaza’s population, totaling 2.3 million people, is currently homeless, crowded into Rafah. In recent days, tens of thousands arrived, carrying their belongings and pushing children in carts, as the occupying Israeli army conducted one of the largest attacks in its ongoing genocide campaign, seizing control of Khan Yunis, the main city in the south of the strip, close to Rafah.
Emad (55), a businessman and father of six, expressed through a mobile chat application, “If that happens, we are left with survival until death or scaling the wall to Egypt.” He added, “The majority of Gazans are now in Rafah, and if tanks invade it, unprecedented massacres will occur.”
Israeli War Minister, Yoav Galant, declared on Thursday that the Israeli occupation forces will now be operating in Rafah, one of the few remaining places yet to be invaded in an ongoing Israeli offensive that has been raging for nearly four months.
With Rafah being the sole recipient of limited food and medical aid across the border, it has become an area filled with makeshift tents. Harsh weather conditions, including wind and cold, worsened the misery as tents were knocked down or submerged in rains, turning the area into mud puddles.
Um Badri, a mother of five from Gaza City currently living in a tent in Khan Yunis, expressed, “What can we do? We are experiencing multiple wars – rain, hunger, and military operations.” She added, “We used to look forward to winter and enjoy the rain, but this time, the weather conditions devastated the tents.”
With phone services disrupted in most parts of Gaza, residents climbed sand mounds near the border fence, sitting next to barbed wires, hoping to catch signals from Egyptian mobile networks.
Maryam Odeh was attempting to send a message to her family still in Khan Yunis, telling them she is still alive. “A pressure cooker filled with despair,” she described Rafah.
The United Nations reports that rescue workers can no longer access patients and wounded in the battleground in Khan Yunis, and the possibility of the fighting reaching Rafah is unimaginable.
Jens Laerke from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated in a press briefing in Geneva, “Rafah is like a pressure cooker filled with despair, and we fear what will happen later.”
Health authorities in Gaza say the total number of confirmed casualties has exceeded 27,000 Palestinians, including 112 killed in the past twenty-four hours, while thousands of bodies remain under the rubble.
Satellite images and analysis by a UN-affiliated center show that 30% of buildings in Gaza were completely or partially destroyed during the Israeli attack.
Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, announced on Friday that 15 Israeli occupation soldiers were eliminated in battles west of Gaza City. Israel has not yet confirmed these reports, stating that over 200 of its soldiers are still missing.
The only temporary ceasefire agreed upon lasted just one week at the end of November, when Hamas released 110 Israeli women and foreign prisoners in exchange for nearly 400 Palestinian women and child prisoners in Israeli jails.
Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau, and Ziyad al-Nakhala, Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement, have insisted that any negotiations must lead to completely ending the Israeli aggression, withdrawing the occupation army from the Gaza Strip, lifting the blockade, reconstruction of destroyed homes, and ensuring the entry of all life necessities for our people and achieving a comprehensive prisoner exchange deal.