Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has insisted that there is no “humanitarian catastrophe” in Rafah. His comments come as Israel continues its siege on Palestine where nearly 500,000 people have been evacuated from Rafah.
Netanyahu’s comments also come as Palestinians commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba where 760,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 wartime creation of Israel.
Israel has carpet bombed Gaza and pushed many Palestinians further and further south into Rafah. Israel has repeatedly been warned that its further push into Rafah is exacerbating the threat of famine, and a broader humanitarian crisis. This, of course, follows months of thousands of bombs being dropped all across Palestine.
Israel has already killed 35,000 Palestinians according to UN estimates. The actual death toll is likely much higher as many remain trapped under rubble. As Israel continues to starve and bomb Palestinians, Netanyahu’s onslaught is increasingly being termed a genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Settler colonialism
But even as Netanyahu announced that hundreds of thousands had been “evacuated”, he insisted there was no humanitarian crisis in Rafah:
Our responsible efforts are bearing fruit. So far, in Rafah, close to half a million people have been evacuated from the combat zones. The humanitarian catastrophe that was spoken about did not materialise, nor will it.
He did not appear to state what exactly people were evacuating from. Nor did he reference Israel’s brutal push of Palestinians further and further south as Israel advances.
‘Harder than the Nakba’
15 May marks the 76th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, the latter of which translates from Arabic as “catastrophe.” Almost a decade on, the same sight of desperate families scrambling through devastated cities endures.
Hamas declared in a Nakba Day statement that:
the ongoing suffering of millions of refugees inside Palestine and in the diaspora is directly attributed to the Zionist occupation.
Their statement explained the right of return for Palestinians as a:
legitimate right to return to their homes from which they were displaced cannot be compromised or relinquished.
One displaced Gaza man, Mohammed al-Farra, whose family fled their home in Khan Yunis for the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, said:
Our ‘Nakba’… is the worst ever.
It is much harder than the Nakba of 1948.
Traditionally, thousands march to mark the day in cities across the Israeli-occupied West Bank. People wave Palestine flags, wear keffiyeh scarves, and hold up symbolic keys as reminders of long-stolen family homes. This year, Palestinians face a present day Nakba.
Last month, Al-Jazeera reported that almost 400 bodies have been uncovered in a mass grave at two hospitals in the Gaza strip. There appear to be signs of execution and torture:
Ten of the bodies were found with bound hands while others still had medical tubes attached to them, indicating they may have been buried alive
Melanie Ward, head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said:
Every space… is already full of displaced people living in tents. People who came from the east of Khan Younis can’t return there because their homes have been destroyed. That physically isn’t enough space for people in Rafah to try to move and seek safety somewhere else. It’s impossible for Israel to attack Rafah and for it not to be a disaster of epic proportions.
Israel have already begun airstrikes on Rafah.
Netanyahu: an orchestrated famine
Last week the already sporadic aid deliveries into Gaza via truck have slowed to a trickle. This is due to Israeli forces who took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Another convoy carrying humanitarian relief goods was ransacked by Israeli right-wing activists on Monday after it had crossed from Jordan through the occupied West Bank. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “outraged” about the assault at a time “hundreds of thousands of civilians are starving”.
Just days ago, a UN food agency chief said Northern Gaza was in “full blown famine” that was “moving its way south.”
A British doctor currently in Rafah said:
Over the last couple of days, the situation has deteriorated even further, with several airstrikes and artillery strikes across the east of Rafah city
Coming into Rafah, the streets that were previously packed with [Palestinians] living in makeshift tents [are now empty]. Most of those tents have now been dismantled and people have fled.
The south [of Gaza] is running out of food… this is just catastrophe on catastrophe on catastrophe. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it in my entire life.
Israel have fired on food trucks, blocked trucks from making deliveries, and even fired at people searching for food in the so-called ‘flour massacre‘.
Netanyahu’s comments are a sick joke. Israel has bombed hospitals, schools, and pushed civilians into Rafah. Israel has purposely orchestrated food scarcity for Palestinians. And now their leader has the audacity to claim they’ve avoided a humanitarian catastrophe?
Social media feeds are still full of dying and dead Palestinians, the least we can do is call out their lies.
