UN says 80,000 displaced from Gaza’s Rafah city as Israeli bombardment intensifies

Some 80,000 people have left Rafah since Monday amid continuing Israeli bombardment in and around Gaza’s southernmost city overnight and into Thursday, UN humanitarian officials reported.

Most of those uprooted by Israeli military evacuation orders in eastern Rafah have already been displaced from other areas of Gaza; they are now leaving with everything they can carry “in vehicles, trucks, (on) motorbikes and donkey carts”, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees

More than 47,500 people are estimated to have left their shelters in Rafah on Wednesday alone, UNRWA said, with some families approaching the agency’s shelters at Tel Sultan as well as Al Mawasi in the west.

The World Food Programme’s (WFP) Director for Palestine Matthew Hollingworth said in a post on X on Thursday that the agency’s main warehouse “is now inaccessible”.

“No aid has entered from southern crossings in two days”, he added. “There is only a single bakery still operational while supplies of food will last only one to three days.”

In an update, UNRWA noted “an ongoing and significant amount of bombardment” in eastern Rafah early Thursday “and all through the night”