After the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Khan Yunis, which was the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, thousands of Palestinians who took refuge in the nearby city of Rafah tried to return to their old homes in the city. But, after intense fighting and four months of Israeli occupation, the city is practically unrecognizable: half of the buildings are completely destroyed, many people have lost their homes and there is practically no type of infrastructure.
Most of the thousands of Palestinians who walked the eight kilometers from Rafah to Khan Yunis had to turn back. Those who were able recovered some objects and clothing from their homes, left during the evacuation. Others decided to stay. A resident of Khan Yunis, Mohammed Abu Rizzeq, told BBC News that “it is better for us to have a tent on the rubble of our house, rather than be displaced and exiled”.
– Read also: Photos of Palestinians returning to Khan Yunis, now semi-destroyed
Many witnesses also spoke about the smell in the city. Health and emergency services collapsed, and the bodies of those killed in Israeli bombing remained under the rubble for months. Another resident, Maha Taher, told the Qatari news site Al Jazeera that «all the roads were destroyed by bulldozers. And the stench… I saw people digging and extracting corpses.” Taher’s apartment is partially destroyed, but the woman said that she will return there, because “although it is not suitable to live in, it is still better than curtains”.
More than half of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip took refuge in refugee camps near Rafah, which had just over 200 thousand inhabitants and is in the southernmost point of the territory, on the border with Egypt. Today it is surrounded by large refugee camps, where living conditions are very precarious. Rafah is the only city in the Strip that has not yet been invaded by Israel, which considers it a stronghold of the radical Palestinian group Hamas. Israel has repeatedly announced that it will also launch an offensive in Rafah: its international allies, including the United States, have repeatedly opposed a possible military operation unless Israel first presents a plan to evacuate and protect civilians.
Israel has proposed to gather the people who took refuge in Rafah in refugee camps in the south of the Strip, but these camps have not yet been built. It is possible that the army’s withdrawal from Khan Yunis serves at least in part to reduce the presence of civilians in Rafah. However, the conditions in Khan Yunis will hardly allow a mass movement of the people who had taken refuge in Rafah up until now.
– Read also: Why did Israel withdraw from Khan Yunis?
