More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now homeless and crammed into Rafah. Tens of thousands more have arrived in recent days, carrying belongings in their arms and pulling children on carts, since Israeli forces launched one of the biggest assaults of the war last week to capture adjacent Khan Younis, the main southern city.
If the Israeli tanks keep coming they will be left with two choices: stay and die or climb the walls into Egypt.
Most of Gaza's population are in Rafah. If the tanks storm in, it will be a massacre like never before during this war."
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late on Thursday that troops would now turn to Rafah, which along with Deir al-Balah just north of Khan Younis is among the last remaining areas they have yet to storm in an almost four-month assault.
"We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us," Gallant said in a statement.
As the only part of Gaza with access to the limited food and medical aid trickling across the border, Rafah and nearby parts of Khan Younis have become a warren of makeshift tents clinging to the winter mud. Wind and cold weather added to the misery, blowing tents down, flooding them and the ground between them.
"Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next," Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a briefing in Geneva.
Israel says Hamas must be eradicated before it pulls its troops out of Gaza or frees detainees. Hamas says it will not sign any truce deal unless Israel agrees to pull out and end the war.
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