Trapped in Rafah, plunged into darkness, living in deadly limbo

Before the war, five people lived in Mohanad Alsaadawi’s family home in Rafah. There are now 31 people huddled beneath its roof as the last “safe” place in Gaza waits for Israel to launch what could be its deadliest military offensive.

The mass of people crammed into a two-storey house, most of them having fled homes in other cities, towns and settlements now reduced to rubble by Israeli bombs, tells the bigger story of Rafah, the geographic and humanitarian end point of a conflict that has left two out of three surviving Gazans sheltering on a small wedge of land between the Egyptian border and Mediterranean Sea.

People inspect the damage to their homes following Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, Gaza.Credit: Getty Images

A prewar population of 275,000 people in Rafah has swollen to an estimated 1.4 million. Thomas White, the Sydney-born director of UN Relief and Works Agency aid operations in Gaza now based in Rafah, has worked in crisis zones for 20 years and never confronted a situation quite like it. “The most striking thing here is that people are trapped,” he told this masthead. “There is nowhere to flee.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s evacuation order, issued late last week, for civilians to leave Rafah before IDF troops move in, has placed the city at the centre of a global political and humanitarian campaign to halt Israel’s advance into what Netanyahu called the “last bastion” of Hamas, the terror group responsible for the October atrocities.

Alsaadawi is a 23-year-old university graduate who before the war was using his freshly awarded degree in information technology to launch a start-up. His family has lived in Gaza since 1948, when they were displaced from a small village outside Ramla, in what is now central Israel. He has lived through other conflicts but never felt the sense of impending doom that has settled over Rafah.

He described Monday night’s sustained bombardment, the most intense military operation Israel has directed against the city so far, as a night from hell. People packed into houses or sheltering in tents had no way of knowing the bombardment was cover fire for a hostage rescue operation and not the start of Netanyahu’s promised invasion.

Mohanad Alsaadawi is sheltering with 30 other people in his Rafah home as Israel prepares for a ground invasion.

The operation rescued two Israeli hostages. According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health agency, the bombardment left 67 people dead.

Writing to this masthead over two days through WhatsApp, Alsaadawi described what it was like, sitting in pitch blackness, as bombs fell nearby.

“Everyone huddles together in the ground floor,” he said. “Beds are scarce, so some sit on the floor, trying to find comfort amidst the chaos. The darkness is oppressive, only interrupted by the flashes of explosions. We do our best to reassure the children, telling them stories or singing softly to mask the sounds of bombardment. Prayer becomes a collective solace, a desperate plea for safety.

“Communication is strained amid the noise. Shouts of reassurance and whispered conversations mix with the relentless echoes of explosions. Mixed feelings of fear and uncertainty. We share glances filled with dread, knowing that each bomb brings us closer to the impending battle.”

Alsaadawi said the uncertainty about what was coming next was paralysing. “Netanyahu’s announcement adds a layer of fear, and the realisation that there might be no escape amplifies the fear,” he said. “It’s a helpless feeling, compounded by the knowledge that destruction is imminent, and we’re trapped in its path.

“Overwhelmingly, the emotion is a mix of fear, frustration, and a sense of abandonment.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week added his voice to those of US President Joe Biden and other national leaders calling for Israel to rethink its planned ground offensive in Rafah. For Palestinian Australians with family trapped in Rafah, there is an overwhelming feeling of dread.

Hadil Albarqi left Gaza four years ago to study in Melbourne. At the end of last year, her mother, Ektimal, and brother Khalid fled their Khan Younis home, which was under attack from Israeli forces, to seek refuge in Rafah.

Ektimal Albarqi is one of an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians who have sought refuge in the town of Rafah.

They are now living with her aunt and four other people in a house that has no electricity, no heating, little food and almost no water. Their home in Khan Younis has been destroyed.

“Everyone is just extremely exhausted,” Albarqi said. “All my friends and their families still in Gaza are in Rafah. They are very scared about what is going to happen, but they are all in limbo. Where are they going to go?

“No one ever expected it to drag on for this long. I guess we were naive enough to think the US and the West would intervene and pressure Israel to stop.”

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said the Rafah evacuation order had left Australia’s Palestinian community in a state of shock and despair.

“This is undoubtedly an act of genocidal aggression against families and entire communities that were rounded up and forced towards Rafah as Israel systematically razed their homes and neighbourhoods across all other parts of Gaza,” he said. “Israel is telegraphing a massacre targeting civilians in Rafah.”

Thomas White, the UN Relief and Works Agency chief, said every open space in Rafah had a makeshift shelter on it, people were living on footpaths, and the dunes west of town were a sea of tents and lean-tos.

The provision of aid in Rafah is already under intense strain and the agency is nearing financial collapse following the suspension of donations by more than a dozen countries, including Australia, in response to Israeli allegations that a dozen people who worked for the agency were involved in the October 7 massacre in southern Israel.

The United Nations is investigating the allegations and severed ties with those implicated. White said that unless the funding was quickly restored, he wouldn’t be able to pay staff and contractors crucial not only to the provision of aid by UNRWA, but other humanitarian agencies operating in Gaza.

Netanyahu has suggested that civilians in Rafah might be able to shift north back into parts of Gaza where Israel has completed its operations. President Biden has demanded that Israel produce a detailed plan to protect civilian life before it launches its ground offensive. For White, the idea of putting a million already displaced people back onto the road is untenable.

“We need a ceasefire,” he said. “People are absolutely traumatised by this war. They have already moved several times. They are living with grossly inadequate sanitation and shelter, and the healthcare system is collapsing.

“Coming into Rafah would be absolutely catastrophic.”

Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter here.