Residents said tanks, which had moved in to take control of the crossing, had not entered built-up areas of the city and gun battles were still outside the city limits.
As battles raged on the outskirts of Rafah on Wednesday with Israeli forces closing in, Palestinians were on the move again, abandoning neighbourhoods of the southern Gaza city and leaving them as ghost towns.
Three residents of Rafah told Reuters by telephone that tens of thousands of people have fled the city, which was seen as the last refuge for Palestinians who have been displaced many times over as Israeli air strikes pulverised Gaza.People in the Jneina, Al-Shawka, Al-Salam and other neighbourhoods were ordered by the Israeli army to leave in anticipation of an assault. Some 1.4 million people have been sheltering in Rafah, raising the prospect of major casualties.
Juliette Touma, director of communications of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, estimated that around 10,000 Palestinians have left Rafah since Monday. The Israeli army has ordered tens of thousands of people to evacuate Rafah as it conducts a ground operation there.Hamas said its fighters were battling Israeli forces in the east of Rafah. Lines of smoke from air strikes and tank shelling rose from places east of the city, residents said.
“Sixty-five families or 400 people are now homeless. People have no money, no tents, no one to support them,” he said.“This is the third or fourth time we have had to move. We are eight families. We live in fear. There is no safe place in the entire strip,” he said.The main maternity hospital in Rafah has stopped admitting patients, the United Nations Population Fund told Reuters on Wednesday.
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