The situation has become more tense in Rafah in recent days. More and more homes are bombed in Israeli attacks and several people have been killed. One and a half million Palestinians are estimated to be there.
– People walk around like zombies. They are tired of the constant bombings and repeated displacements. Many want the Israeli army to invade Rafah as soon as possible. It means either dying and avoiding further suffering or forcing the Egyptians to open the border, says Abdel Jawad, 48.
The photojournalist does not see Hamas soldiers roam the city as they did before the war. But he believes that under the city, which is next to the Egyptian border, there are a much greater number of tunnels than under the rest of the cities in the Gaza Strip. However, the entrances to the tunnels are not visible, as they are behind the doors of ordinary houses.
– That Hamas tunnels are under the houses will give Israel an excuse to blow up all the houses in Rafah. They wiped out 70 percent of the nearby town of Khan Yunis. Here we expect it to be ten times worse.
He is convinced that Israel’s goal – apart from eliminating Hamas – is to drive the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He and his family want to escape to Egypt. But they fear massacres if Israel tries to enter Rafah before Egypt allows them to leave Gaza.
– The Israeli army is not interested in rescuing either civilian Gazans or the kidnapped Israelis. It wants to displace us, and now is the time to reap the rewards of this whole military operation. Thus, without controlling Rafah, there will be no real displacement of Palestinians.
Israel is under pressure from The US wants Israel to come up with a plan to protect civilians in Rafah before the expected ground invasion.
Abdel Jawad notes that the Israeli army is building tents in the Mawasi area west of Khan Yunis, north of Rafah.
– But what do 20,000 tents that Israel claims would build for these hundreds of thousands of people?
An invasion in Rafah is believed by observers to take place only after the Jewish holiday of Pesach, in May.
– Then the terrifying scenario begins to unfold. We are afraid that they will repeat what they did in Gaza City; that they raze residential blocks to the ground and then invade.
