‘Everything is difficult’: the struggle for the basic principles of life in Rafah

The fear has been building for weeks.

More than a million Palestinians fled to Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost region, hoping to escape the war. Now Israel has threatened to expand its invasion there too.

Amid days of struggle to secure food, water and shelter, uncertainty has dominated people’s conversations, said Khalid Shurrab, a charity worker living with his family in a leaky tent in Rafah.

“We have two options: stay as we are or face our destiny: death,” said 36-year-old Mr Shurrab. “People literally have no other safe place to go.”

Rafah, which has so far been spared from Israel’s heavy attacks, has become a new flashpoint in a war now in its sixth month. It is where most of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have ended up, multiplying the territory’s population and depleting its limited resources.

And with Israel signaling its intention to go after Hamas militants in Rafah, and Egypt preventing most Gazans from crossing the border south, families fear they are trapped.

In Rafah Governorate, where fewer than 300,000 people lived before the war, space has become a rare commodity. Displaced families pack schools, tent camps spread across empty lots and pedestrians crowd the streets.

Cooking gas is so scarce that the air is thick with smoke from fires burning salvaged wood and chopped-up furniture. Fuel is expensive, so people walk, cycle or take carts pulled by donkeys and horses. Because Rafah is located along the Egyptian border, where most of the aid comes from, the country receives more supplies than other parts of Gaza.

Yet many residents are so desperate that they throw rocks at emergency trucks to get them to stop or swarm them to try to grab whatever they can. Hundreds of people were killed and injured during a stampede and Israeli gunfire as a convoy of trucks tried to deliver aid in Gaza City, in the north of the territory, last month.

Most people seeking shelter in Rafah spend their days securing basic needs: finding clean water to drink and bathe, obtaining enough food, and calming their children when Israeli attacks occur nearby.

“Everything is difficult here,” said Hadeel Abu Sharek, 24, who is staying at a shuttered restaurant in Rafah with her 3-year-old daughter and other relatives. “Our dreams have been crushed. Our lives have become a nightmare.”

Her family usually only manages to find enough food for one meal a day, she said, and while they boil water before drinking it, many of them have been sick, including her daughter. They don’t have an easy place to get medicine.

“The bombardment is terrifying, especially for the children,” she said, adding that everyone gathered in a corner when they heard Israeli attacks, fearing the roof would fall on them.

The restaurant was their second stop since leaving their homes in northern Gaza at the start of the war. They now have to move again, she said. The restaurant kicks them out, but gave them some metal rods and waterproof cloth to build a makeshift tent.

Shelter is so scarce that rents have skyrocketed, schools have become de facto refugee camps and many families are sleeping in tents or putting up plastic sheeting to protect themselves from the rain and cold.

Not long after the invasion began, Ismail al-Afify, a tailor from northern Gaza, set up camp with his family under a concrete stairwell in a school. The building has since been filled with many other refugees, with four families sometimes sharing one classroom.

To meet their needs, Mr al-Afify’s sons keep an eye out for aid and water trucks so they can run over and try to get supplies or fill their buckets with water. When they have flour, his daughter-in-law bakes flatbread with other women in a makeshift clay oven on the street.

He often goes to bed hungry, said Mr. al-Afify, 62.

Shortages of fuel and other supplies have nearly paralyzed local medical facilities.

In an interview, Marwan al-Hams, director of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, Rafah’s largest hospital, listed the services it could no longer provide: intensive care, complex surgeries, CT scans or MRIs and cancer treatments. The doctors do not have painkillers or medicines for diabetes and high blood pressure. Their ability to dialyze is so reduced that patients with kidney disease have died.

The hospital itself is busy, with displaced families sheltering in the grounds and hallways. There are only 63 beds for about 300 patients, he said.

“Most cases are dealt with on the floor,” he says.

In the early months of the war, the Israeli army repeatedly ordered people in Gaza to evacuate south for their own safety. But Israel has also struck many times in Rafah, killing people and damaging buildings. On Wednesday, Israeli forces struck an aid warehouse in Rafah, killing a UN worker, according to UNRWA, the largest aid group on the ground in Gaza.

Aid groups and United Nations officials have warned that an invasion of Rafah would be catastrophic for civilians in Gaza, and President Biden called such a move a “red line,” although he added that helping Israel defend itself ” crucial’ remained. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded with his own red line: “That October 7 will not happen again,” he said, referring to the Hamas-led attack on Israel that started the war. Israeli officials say about 1,200 people have been killed and about 240 taken to Gaza as prisoners.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a bombing campaign and invasion that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 31,000 people, a toll that makes no distinction between civilians and fighters.

In mid-February, an Israeli attack hit the al-Hoda Mosque in Rafah, collapsing the roof and severely damaging the building, according to Palestinian news media and Aaed Abu Hasanein, the facility’s prayer leader. It is unclear why the building was hit. Israel has accused Hamas of using civilian buildings such as schools and mosques for terrorist activities, an accusation Hamas denies.

The strike rendered most of the building unusable, Abu Hasanein said.

“As you can see, there’s nothing left,” he said. “Everything is gone.”

But people still pray in the mosque, he added. About 150 people can fit in the hallway where visitors once left their shoes, the least damaged part of the building.

“This is the safest, unburned place,” said Mr Abu Hasanein.