Abu Mustafa's family members are among more than a million Palestinians currently crowded into the area surrounding Rafah, and they fear that there is no escape left for them inside the small enclave, which has largely turned into rubble and where fighting is still raging.
Laila Abu Mustafa said: “I mean, we are degraded and displaced every day, and this displacement is difficult for me, because I have two disabled daughters and I cannot carry, bring, and pick up, nor do I have a car.”
She added: “If there is displacement, I will not leave here.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the development of a plan to evacuate civilians gathered in Rafah, whether in tents on the streets, in empty areas, on the beach, or, like Abu Mustafa’s family, on the sand strip extending along the Egyptian border.
Aid agencies say any attack on the city would be disastrous in a war that has already caused untold tragedies.
Civilian evacuation plan
In an interview scheduled to be broadcast on the American ABC network on Sunday, Netanyahu reiterated that Israeli forces will attack Rafah, but said that they are preparing a “detailed plan” for where civilians can go there.
“We will do that,” Netanyahu said. “We will find the remaining Hamas terrorist brigades in Rafah.”
He added: “We will do this while providing safe passage for the civilian population.”
Abu Mustafa family
In front of the border fence topped with barbed wire, Abu Mustafa’s family hangs their washed clothes between the tents. The family cooks whatever little food they have in empty tin cans over a fire in the sand.
Maryam said that the fear of an attack on Rafah is the main concern in every dialogue in the crowded city. Maryam is a woman who fled her home in Gaza City at the beginning of the war with her three children, ages five, seven, and nine.
Maryam added: “I cannot describe my feeling. I feel like there is a storm inside my head, and my children ask me every now and then, ‘Israel wants to invade Rafah? Where will we go? Are we going to die?’ And I have no answers.”
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