Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into the small southern Gaza border city of Rafah are being forced to contemplate being displaced once more as an Israeli offensive looms.
Aid officials have described the city as a “pressure cooker of despair”, warning that a full-scale Israeli offensive on an area so overcrowded could cause large-scale loss of civilian life, and could be a war crime.
Describing the mood this week, Raed al-Nims, the media director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said: “Everyone is afraid of the expanding of the ground operation in Rafah.”
The growing sense of desperation has been underlined by the fact that some of the few who have tried to leave the city for areas such as Nuseirat, central Gaza, in recent days have lost contact with family members.
Most families who spoke to the Guardian this week indicated they would wait for an Israeli military evacuation order in the hope it would designate a safe exit route in the event of a full-scale assault.
“Yes, I’ll move if they want to invade Rafah,” said Moamen Jarad, 25, who fled to the city earlier in the war from northern Gaza, one of the first areas attacked during the Israeli ground offensive.
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