Where Will More Than a Million
People in Rafah Go for Safety?
Win Without War

(April 29, 2024) — It’s as misguided as it would be devastating. All signs indicate the Israeli government is laying the groundwork to assault on Rafah, an area roughly the size of Boulder, CO, where 1.4 million scared, starving, and desperate people are sheltering.

Netanyahu maintains further escalation is necessary to bring the remaining hostages home. But the only thing that has ever safely reunited hostages with their families without further endangering people across Israel, Palestine, and beyond is a ceasefire.

The US is likely the only government in the world able to sway the Israeli government away from its disastrous plans for Rafah — and that’s why what’s happening now is so crucial.

With a proposal for a 40-day ceasefire on the table in Cairo this week, our team is working overtime to pressure the Biden administration to do all they can to pull the Israeli government back from Rafah and keep the focus on diplomacy.

The most important — and fragile — part of any strategy is moments like this, where the stakes are high and balance feels like it just might tip in your favor. with so many lives on the line, we can’t afford to let this work fail.

Even without military escalation, the near-total collapse of health and sanitation infrastructure, the spread of disease, and a dire scarcity of food, water, and medicine could kill thousands more in the coming months.

War is impossible to contain. Since Hamas’ horrific attacks on October 7, violence has spilled across the Middle East. If the Israeli government proceeds down the horrifying path it’s on, the situation will only get worse.

The suffering and death we’ve already seen will increase exponentially. Attacking Rafah would only escalate violence across Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. That’s not all: The Egyptian government has warned against the attack, hinting that it would abrogate the Camp David Accords if Israel moves forward — a move that would unravel over four decades of US-brokered peace and dramatically escalate the odds of a larger, more devastating war.

For weeks, influential decision-makers have constantly been in touch with our team, strategizing how to save lives and avoid a nightmare scenario. The US government will continue to have a lead role in whatever happens next — and that’s why we need to keep the pressure on.

Our work is paying off. It’s a huge part of why we saw members of Congress vote “No” on offensive weapons for Israel just days ago. It’s how we’ve pushed the Biden administration to deter the Israeli government from broader action in Rafah. And it’s why we can’t afford to stop now. With violence showing no signs of slowing, we need everyone across the Win Without War community with us. Can you help us go further to save lives in an urgent moment of crisis?

Since the crisis began, our small team has been working round the clock. We’re amplifying the call for ceasefire in ads, posters across the National Mall, and billboards in front of the White House. We’re making non-stop calls to Hill and White House staff, and with your support, have brought peacemakers from Israel and Palestine directly to DC to speak truth to power. Just last week, thousands of activists from across the country called on Congress to go further to ensure the US isn’t complicit in the violence we’ve seen.

All this — the grassroots mobilization, the relentless lobbying, the creative campaign tactics, and more — is only possible because of people like you.

As hard as it is to keep engaging with the horror of this conflict, when people turn away, the cycle of violence can continue. That’s why our community gives us so much hope: We are the people who refuse to give up. We are the ones building the more peaceful world we all want and deserve.

Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team

Since April 1, hundreds of  tents have appeared at the northern edge of Rafah.

What to Know about an Israeli
Military Offensive in Rafah
Becky Sullivan, Aya Batrawy, Anas Baba, Jane Arraf / NPR

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (April 26, 2024) — Some of the more than 1 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah are weighing the risks of whether to stay or flee as concerns grow of a military offensive there that Israel says is necessary for its war aims.

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.

Several recent developments, though, indicate the military may be laying the groundwork 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 also been almost daily airstrikes on the city in recent weeks, indicating increased pressure by the military on Rafah.

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.

Sheltering in Rafah

Abdullah Omar is one of the many displaced people sheltering 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.

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 relocating to a tent is painful, he said, because his wife is still breastfeeding their youngest child and needs privacy. The prospect of an offensive is “one of the most terrifying things for us,” he said.

Threats of an invasion have been a tool that Israel has used in negotiations with Hamas for a temporary cease-fire to release hostages, but those talks — mediated by Qatar and Egypt — have stalled, in large part over the duration of a cease-fire, as Israel insists it must take Rafah and dismantle Hamas battalions it says operate there.

But with those talks at an impasse now for weeks, there’s growing worry in Rafah of an impending assault. 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.

Another chid killed in a war supported by President Biden.

What We Know about Israel’s Plans

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. Gen. Itzik Cohen told Israeli public broadcaster Kan on Tuesday, adding that the city would be free of arms and hostages.

For weeks, senior Israeli officials and members of the Biden administration have been in talks about Israel’s plans for an offensive in Rafah. Egyptians officials tell NPR that some of those plans have also been shared with Egypt.

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 US has pressed Israel to pursue “alternate ways” of addressing a Hamas military presence in Rafah, said Ambassador David Satterfield, the US 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.

or 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.”

In Rafah, Tents Are Being Built to Hold Thousands

NPR has identified at least four large tent encampments erected north of Rafah over the past month. Commercial satellite imagery shows two were erected near Khan Younis over the past week.

A mass evacuation of Palestinians from Rafah could take weeks, and there’s no confirmation these tents are being set up for that purpose. The Israeli military declined to comment when asked by NPR about the new tents as seen on satellite imagery.

Israel’s Ministry of Defense said this month that it planned to purchase 40,000 tents to house Palestinians displaced from Rafah. With a capacity of up to 12 people in each, the tents could, in theory, house up to 480,000 Palestinians — about a third of the number of people thought to be sheltering in Rafah.

Egypt is concerned that an Israeli assault on Rafah could forcibly displace Palestinians into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has said this could drag Egypt into the war and facilitate a mass exodus of Gazans who may never be allowed to return.

Aid Groups Say Attacking Rafah Would Be “Catastrophic”

Humanitarian groups and U.N. agencies have based their operations out of Rafah for much of the war. It’s the only exit point for wounded Palestinians seeking treatment abroad and the few who can afford expensive visas to leave. It’s also how aid workers and much of Gaza’s humanitarian aid enters.

A military offensive in Rafah would be “catastrophic,” says Samah Hadid, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides food, water and other humanitarian supplies to displaced Palestinians. “Any offensive would just cause the aid response to come to a complete collapse,” she says.

Like most major aid groups, the Norwegian Refugee Council does not currently have set plans to evacuate, says Hadid. In the event that an offensive does begin, she says, “we would hope to stay and to deliver support to the displaced population as much as possible and as safely as possible.”

Several humanitarian organizations had already suspended operations in Gaza this month after an Israeli airstrike on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy killed seven of the organization’s workers.

A majority of organizations working in Rafah have contingency plans for an evacuation. But those plans cannot be fully effective without more credible information from Israel, said Joseph Kelly, the director of the Association of International Development Agencies, an organization that coordinates with aid groups working in Gaza.

“To the best of their ability, they’re stockpiling aid. 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 responsible for Palestinian affairs, has 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.

World Central Kitchen workers were killed in an Israeli attack on April 1.

Palestinians Say There’s No Safe Place to Go

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. The fighting also decimated the hospital, and the Palestinian civil defense says hundreds of bodies, many of them civilians, are still being recovered in the city, which is sparsely populated these days compared with Rafah.

The United Nations says more than a million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, a fourfold increase from the city’s prewar population and more than half of the Gaza Strip’s total population. Many of the displaced individuals have crowded by the dozens into apartments or houses owned by extended family or friends. Others have lived for months in tents or other temporary structures.

Hadi Al-Sayyed, who was displaced from his home in Gaza City and now lives in an unused storefront with his family, says people are slowly dying in Rafah and being targeted in airstrikes there too.

“When they tell us to go to any place, we will go, but only if they provide us with a place to live and provide water and food — not just throw us in the desert and tell us ‘survive,'” he says.

Already, though, Rafah is unsafe for civilians. Israeli airstrikes have ramped up over the past month. More than 230 people have been killed in airstrikes in Rafah since March 21, with three-quarters of the victims women and children, according to Yousef Ibrahim, who works with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and compiles data from hospitals about the strikes on his city.

Al-Sayyed says people’s patience has run out. He says people might try to climb the border fence with Egypt or try to return to their homes in Gaza City, where Israeli tanks have cut off access, saying militants could try to regroup there.

He says people don’t want foreign aid or assistance or even a cease-fire. “We want the war to end,” he said.

Reporting by Becky Sullivan in Tel Aviv, Israel; Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Anas Baba in Rafah, Gaza Strip; and Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan. Additional reporting from Michele Kelemen and Itay Stern in Tel Aviv; Ahmed Abuhamda in Cairo; and Geoff Brumfiel in Washington, D.C.

Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.