Israeli troops encircle parts of Rafah, leaving wounded 'bleeding to death'
Israeli ground forces have encircled the Tel al-Sultan area in Rafah, southern Gaza, leaving 50,000 Palestinians trapped with little access to food and water, and the wounded "left to bleed to death".
Israeli troops began encircling the area on Sunday morning, issuing a notice expelling Palestinians.
"At around 8am, they began dropping expulsion leaflets," Mais Hassouna, from the Saudi neighbourhood of Tel al-Sultan, told Middle East Eye.
She said Apache attack helicopters and quadcopters shot indiscriminately at people in the area, wounding some of her neighbours.
"The night was terrifying in ways that are abnormal," Hassouna said. "I felt like I wanted to swallow myself whole."
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The Rafah municipality said in a statement that Tel al-Sultan was "being subjected to genocide" with thousands of civilians, including children, women, and the elderly, trapped under intense Israeli bombardment.
'The night was terrifying in ways that are abnormal'
- Mais Hassouna, Tel al-Sultan
It said that communications had been completely cut in the area, with the fate of residents unknown.
"Families are trapped among the ruins, with no water, no food, no medicine, amid a total collapse of healthcare services. The wounded are left to bleed to death, and children are dying of hunger and thirst under the siege and relentless bombardment."
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it lost contact with its crew members in Rafah.
On Sunday morning, Red Crescent ambulances were on their way to treat wounded patients in Tel al-Sultan when Israeli forces surrounded their vehicles.
Israeli forces released one of the crew members after "severely beating him", the Red Crescent said. More than a day later, the fate of the other emergency workers is still not known.
'It was horrifying'
For those Palestinians who left Tel al-Sultan, the expulsion was a harrowing ordeal.
Nisreen Ashoor, from the Badr camp, said she saw the Israeli army shoot dead two children.
"I saw it with my own eyes, it was horrifying,” she told MEE, adding that she wanted to help but feared that she and her fleeing family members would be shot too.
Ashoor said at least 50 Israeli tanks entered the area, and troops separated men and women during the expulsion.
Some people were stripped naked and left in the cold, she said.
Her father was among the men taken away. She has no idea what happened to him.
"We haven't eaten over our worry for our father," Ashoor said.
Israel's military said that its objective in Tel al-Sultan was to "dismantle terrorist infrastructure and eliminate" militants. It provided no further details.
Elsewhere in Rafah, a number of people were killed and wounded after Israeli bombardment targeted the al-Shakoush area on Monday morning.
Israeli gunfire and artillery shelling was also reported in the southern Gaza neighbourhood of al-Mawasi, where thousands of displaced people live in tents and makeshift homes.
Several Palestinians were wounded in the attacks and taken to the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah.
Israeli strike on school kills three
The assault on Rafah occurred as Israeli strikes killed at least 21 people across Gaza on Monday morning, according to health officials.
Among them, at least two civilians were killed after Israeli forces bombarded the al-Maghraqa area in central Gaza.
Three others, including a child, were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Two journalists were also killed, bringing the total number of press workers killed in the Palestinian territory since October 2023 to 208.
Palestine Today correspondent Mohammad Mansour was killed in an air strike north of Khan Younis while Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent Hussam Shabat was hit in his car in Salah al-Din Street in the north of the enclave.
On Sunday night, at least five people were killed and several others wounded when an Israeli air strike targeted Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
The attack destroyed a large section of the hospital, forcing the evacuation of an entire department, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Among those killed was Ismail Barhoum, a senior Hamas political figure, who was receiving treatment at the hospital for wounds sustained in an earlier Israeli strike.
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