A baby girl who was born premature after an Israeli airstrike has died
A Gazan displaced accountant says Israel is prepared for a possible offensive and that Israel is willing to “Hideout” in Rafah
Many displaced people are living in Rafah. The accountant, who fled Gaza City with his family months ago, said the thought of an invasion makes him feel paralyzed before his children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the military’s plan for an attack on Rafah last month, but there’s still no publicly announced time frame for an assault.
There are a number of recent developments which show that the military may be preparing for its plans. This week, the military announced it had called up two reserve brigades for duty in Gaza. Satellite images examined by NPR show several new tent encampments, which can hold thousands of people, have been erected this month in areas north of Rafah. There have been daily air strikes on the city in the last month, suggesting increased pressure on the city by the military.
Israel says an offensive is necessary to eliminate Hamas and free the remaining 133 hostages taken captive in the Oct. 7 attack, most of whom are believed to be alive. Israel earlier this year freed two hostages from Rafah in an operation that killed scores of Palestinians.
Like many people in Rafah, he’s sheltering in a crowded apartment with other families. There are babies, elderly and ill people among them, he said. The idea of moving to a tent is painful for him because his wife is breastfeeding their youngest child, and they need privacy. He said the prospect of an offensive is terrifying.
There’s a growing worry that an assault will happen due to the talks being at a standstill for weeks. There’s a “deep anxiety prevailing in the south about the possible, looming, upcoming military offensive, which seems to be back on the table,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians, said this week.
A senior Egyptian official told NPR that Israeli intelligence officials have indicated five areas in Rafah where they say tunnels and militant hideouts are present. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive nature of the discussions. The official disputed Israeli claims of tunnels in some of those areas.
“Hamas should know that when the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] goes into Rafah, it would do best to raise its hands in surrender. Rafah will not be the Rafah of today,” Israeli Brig. The city would be free of hostages and weapons, Gen. Itzik Cohen stated on Tuesday.
U.S. envoy to the Middle East, Ambassador David Satterfield, and the Israel-Israel dialogue on the displaced population in Gaza
Multiple officials with knowledge of the discussions have expressed worry about the possibility of a high death toll among Palestinian civilians as Israel targets areas with suspected tunnels.
The U.S. has pressed Israel to pursue “alternate ways” of addressing a Hamas military presence in Rafah, said Ambassador David Satterfield, the U.S. special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues.
“We think there are other ways to deal with this. And if there is not a credible, executable humanitarian plan, then we cannot support a ground operation,” Satterfield told reporters Tuesday.
For its part, Egypt issued a statement this week denying “any dealings with Israel” regarding Rafah, and it reiterated its strong opposition to an offensive in Gaza along Egypt’s border, saying it “will lead to massacres, massive human losses, and widespread destruction.”
Israel has said that Hamas battalions operate in Rafah. The Israeli military has not responded to NPR inquiries about why the Jouda family’s home, among others, have been targeted there.
Like most major aid groups, the Norwegian Refugee Council does not currently have set plans to evacuate, said Hadid. In the event that an offensive does begin, she said, “we would hope to stay and deliver to support the displaced population as much as possible and as safely as possible.”
Several humanitarian organizations decided to stop their operations in Gaza earlier this month after seven of their employees were killed in an Israeli air strike on a aid convoy.
Most of the organizations working in the area have contingency plans. Joseph Kelly, the director of the Association of International Development Agencies, which is an organization that coordinates with aid groups in Gaza, said that the plans cannot be fully effective without more credible information from Israel.
They’re keeping an eye on aid to be the best they can be. They’re looking at certain locations [north of Rafah] such as Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah and parts of Khan Younis where there’s some level of structural integrity to serve people that would eventually be pushed there,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli agency tasked with Palestinian affairs, said it will notify aid groups in a reasonable amount of time, Kelly said, but the agency has not specified how soon that warning will come.
A Palestinian Baby Died in a Hamas-Breaking Targeted Airstrike on Rafah, Gaza
In March, a targeted raid on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital killed 200 militants, according to Israel’s military, which hailed the raid as a model. Hundreds of bodies of civilians are still to be recovered in the city after the fighting decimated the hospital.
Rafah is not safe for civilians. Over the last week, Israeli airstrikes have been on the rise. Three-quarters of those killed in the air strikes in Rafah were women and children, according to Yousef Ibrahim, a researcher for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
He says they will only go to any place if they’re given a place to live and a water and food source.
Al-Sayyed says people’s patience has run out. He says people may try to get to the border fence with Egypt and then return to their homes in the Gaza City area, which is not accessible by Israeli tanks.
Reporting by Rebecca Sullivan in Tel Aviv, Israel; Anas Baba in Gaza Strip; and Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan. In addition to this, there are additional reports from Itay Stern in Tel Aviv and Ahmed Abuhamda in Cairo.
The newborn’s death comes during an uptick in Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter in the nearly seven-month-long war that erupted Oct. 7 with a Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war since then, according to Gaza health officials.
The uncle of the girl said that she was buried next to her father. She was five days old when she was born.
Despite the best efforts by the team at the neonatal department at the Emirati hospital in Rafah, she died on Thursday, according to Dr. Mohammed Salama.
According to the information from the hospital, the baby’s mother, her father, and sister were killed in the Israeli airstrike that hit the family’s home in Rafah.
The mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, had been 30 weeks pregnant. The baby, two months premature, was given an oxygen mask that engulfed her small face, and was transported to a larger hospital that has incubators.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — There had been a glimmer of hope in Rafah this past weekend, when medics were able to rescue a baby girl from her mother’s womb after airstrikes Saturday night killed her entire family.
