‘Now like a ghost town’: Palestinians flee for safety amid Israel’s threat of a Rafah invasion

Loop: As battles raged on the outskirts of Rafah on Wednesday with Israeli forces closing in, Palestinians were on the move again, abandoning neighborhoods of the southern Gaza city and leaving them as ghost towns.

Hamas said its fighters were fighting Israeli forces in the east and that Islamic Jihad fighters attacked Israeli soldiers and military vehicles with heavy artillery near the airport. Shells from Israeli tanks landed in the middle of Rafah, wounding at least 25 people, doctors said.

“The streets of the city echo with cries of innocent lives lost, families destroyed and homes reduced to rubble. “We are on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions,” said Rafah Mayor Ahmed al-Sofi, appealing to the international community to intervene.

Israel has threatened a major assault on Rafah to defeat thousands of Hamas fighters it says are hiding there.