In the streets, hungry children clutch empty plates and saucepans, while raw sewage seeps between tent rows.
Melanie Ward remembers some of these things about Rafah in southern Gaza, where the UN reports that over a million Palestinians have been forced to escape Israel’s assault.
“You wake up to the sound of gunfire from battleships off the coast every morning,” Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a humanitarian organization, told CNN over the phone on Wednesday. “You never know when something is going to hit you, really.” According to Ward, who visited Rafah earlier this month, Palestinians who have been forced from their homes and crammed into the small piece of land worry they would have nowhere to flee in anticipation of a brutal Israeli ground invasion.
“I’m not sure where the over a million people from Rafah are meant to go. It is not observable.
A UN expert issued a warning on Monday, stating that years from now, a rise in mental health disorders among Gaza’s Palestinian population could be a sign of the psychological horror caused by Israel’s offensive.
Gazans, who have been under blockade and constant bombardment for more than six months, are “completely exhausted,” Ward told CNN.