Israel-Gaza latest: 110,000 Palestinians flee Rafah as UN warns aid operations to run out in days
More than 100,000 Palestinians have fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah this week, the United Nations has reported, as Israel prepares to carry out a sweeping offensive in the region.
A spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that around 110,000 civilians have fled after Israeli tanks rolled into Rafah on Monday.
Despite calls from Israel’s staunchest allies to refrain from conducting an offensive in the area and instead agree to a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnyahu says they have “no choice” but to carry out the attack. Otherwise, he says, Hamas will carry out more assaults of their own against Israel.
Meanwhile, Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the Gaza sub-office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the situation in the enclave had reached “unprecedented levels of emergency”.
He said on Friday morning that dwindling food and fuel stocks, a direct result of the last remaining border crossings into Gaza being closed by Israeli troops entering Rafah, risked bringing aid operations to a grinding halt within just days.
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