Latest Gaza Conflict Update: Residents Forced to Flee Again Amid Calls for International Aid and U.N. Casualty

Residents said Israeli air and ground bombardments were intensifying and tanks had cut off the main north-south Salahuddin road dividing east of the city from the central area.

“The tanks cut the Salahuddin road east of the city, the forces are now in the southeast side, building up near the built-up area. The situation is dreadful and the sounds of explosions never stopped,” said Bassam, 57, from the Shaboura neighbourhood in Rafah.

“People continue to leave Rafah … no place looks safe now and people do not want to escape at the last minute,” he told Reuters via a chat app.

UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, estimated that about 360,000 people had fled the southern city since the Israeli military gave its first evacuation order a week ago.

They are moving to empty tracts of land, including Al-Mawasi, a small strip of land along the coast, designated as an expanded humanitarian area by Israel.

But Shaina Low of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency said it was not set up to receive uprooted families.

“(There’s) no space to install latrines or water points. There are huge piles of solid waste. My colleague spoke about seeing donkey carcasses on top of trash, so there are all sorts of health concerns,” Low said.

The assault on Rafah has caused one of the biggest splits in decades between Israel and its main ally the United States, which paused some deliveries of weapons for the first time since the war began.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who is running for reelection this year, has faced heavy criticism from his own supporters domestically for his support of Israel. Some of those critics have accused Israel of committing genocide, a claim dismissed by the White House and Israel.

“We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

Washington says Israel must not assault Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, which it has yet to see.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s office said on Monday he had briefed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the “precise operation” in the Rafah area.

In a sign that U.S. concerns persist, the State Department said Blinken spoke with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Monday and reaffirmed that Washington does not support a major military ground operation by Israel in Rafah.

Hamas’ armed wing said its fighters were engaged in gun battles with Israeli forces in one of the streets east of Rafah, and in the east of Jabalia.

In Israel, the military sounded sirens several times in areas near Gaza, warning of potential Palestinian cross-border rocket and or mortar launches.

Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks headed for Gaza, strewing food packages on the road at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

Hamas and the armed wing of Islamic Jihad said in a joint statement that they fired mortar bombs against Israeli forces massing inside the Rafah crossing, which Israel captured last week.