More than 100,000 people have fled Gaza's Rafah

GAZA STRIP

More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in recent days, the United Nations said on May 10, with Israeli tanks encircling the eastern half of the southern Gaza city, under threat of a full-scale ground invasion.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF said more than 100,000 had left, with the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian agency, UNRWA, putting the figure at more than 110,000.

“UNRWA estimates around 110,000 people have now fled Rafah looking for safety. But nowhere is safe in the Gaza Strip, and living conditions are atrocious,” the agency said in a social media post.

Georgios Petropoulos, head of OCHA's sub-office in Gaza, said the situation in the besieged Palestinian territory had reached "even more unprecedented levels of emergency.”

Hamish Young, UNICEF's senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip, insisted Rafah "must not be invaded" and called for the immediate flow of fuel and aid into the Gaza Strip.

Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close down and leading to more malnutrition.

“For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Young said.

Meanwhile, the EU’s foreign policy chief Joseph Borrel confirmed May 21 as the date when Spain, Ireland and other EU countries would recognize a Palestinian state.

“This is a symbolic act of a political nature. More than a state, it recognizes the will for that state to exist,” he noted, adding that Belgium and other countries would probably follow.

On May 10 afternoon, the United Nations General Assembly is set to back a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and sending the application back to the U.N. Security Council to “reconsider the matter favorably.”

In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a U.S. threat to withhold some arms would not prevent Israel from continuing its offensive in Gaza, indicating it might proceed with an invasion of the packed city of Rafah against the wishes of its closest ally.

On May 8, U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States would not provide offensive weapons for a Rafah offensive, raising pressure on Netanyahu.

But in a statement released on May 9, Netanyahu said “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reportedly expected to submit a report to Congress as early as May 10 on Israel’s conduct in Gaza that criticizes the military’s conduct but stops short of concluding it has violated international law, according to a report presented by U.S. media. The report from U.S. news site Axios, citing three officials, claimed that the submission will include cases in which international humanitarian law was suspected of being broken, describing them using “very critical terms.”

Israel hits Gaza after truce talks end

Israel launched strikes in the Gaza Strip Friday after negotiators pursuing a long-stalled truce agreement left talks in Cairo without having secured a deal.

AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip early Friday witnessed artillery strikes on Rafah on the territory's southern border with Egypt, while witnesses reported air strikes and fighting in Gaza City further north.