A video from Rafah shows children entertaining themselves with songs while sitting together on the ground. – Love, love our country. Hand in hand we will build it, they repeat after an adult. Suddenly they are interrupted by a drone, an explosion. In an instant, what was joy in the eyes is turned to despair and fear. The children run in all directions. Stuck together This time it was a car near a refugee camp that was hit by a bomb. One person died. There have been reports that around fourteen people have died in airstrikes on the border town in the last 24 hours. Four of those killed are children. At the same time, more than 1.2 million Palestinians await the worst. They make up more than half of the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants, and are now crowded together in a small area in Rafah. There are no official figures on how many children stay there, but it is probably around half, i.e. 600,000. The border town is the only one that has so far not been invaded by Israeli soldiers, but on Wednesday Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an attack on Rafah. Israel believes both the Hamas leadership and others in the movement, which was behind the terrorist attack on 7 October, are hiding in the far south of Gaza. So in the area around Rafah. Israel claims that Hamas soldiers are hiding among civilians, including in schools and hospitals, which Hamas denies. Half of the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants now reside in the border town of Rafah. Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP – A pressure cooker of despair – They are backed into a corner. There are no real escape options from Rafah, says secretary general of Save the Children, Birgitte Lange, to news. She explains that it is not possible for the Palestinians to flee north again, without risking being killed. They do not enter neighboring Egypt, and the sea stops them. – There is nowhere else to evacuate to. There is no way out, or up, or away. It’s horrible to think about. This is the last stop, says Lange. Many civilians have fled fighting elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. There are probably around 600,000 children in the border town of Rafah. Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP They have been driven from stronghold to stronghold, and now the Palestinian refugees have nowhere else to go. – We have our backs to the fence, and our faces facing the Mediterranean. Where should we go? There is nowhere to go, says Emad, the father of six, to Reuters. – At breaking point, the UN fears a humanitarian disaster. – Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair and we fear what will happen, said the UN’s Jens Laerke last week. He is a spokesperson for the Office for Coordination of FNS Humanitarian Activities (OCHA). Palestinian refugees in Rafah have been driven from stronghold to stronghold and no longer have anywhere to flee to. – This is the last stop, says Redd Barna. Photo: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA / Reuters – It is of course completely catastrophic if the attack on Rafah escalates, says Lange. She says that the situation for the refugees in Rafah is already at breaking point. The children suffer from malnutrition, malnutrition, hunger and diseases. They live in tent camps, and there is a lack of clean water, clothing and heat. – It is of course completely catastrophic if the attack on Rafah escalates, says secretary general of Save the Children, Birgitte Lange, to news. Photo: Nora Lie / Save the Children Lange thinks it is difficult to imagine what the consequences will be of an invasion of Rafah, but she is sure of one thing: – It will be absolutely terrible. The long-term effects Lange believes that all children in the Gaza Strip now live with the loss of one or another family member. They have seen people killed. They have been in the middle of, or close to, bomb attacks. – There is no doubt that they will have long-term trauma, and they will be physically affected for a long time. The children who survive the war will be malnourished and malnourished, and they will carry with them all the nightmares they have experienced. Palestinian children play in a refugee camp in Rafah. Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP The adults’ fear and desperation also rubs off on the children. And now there is no way out. – Something which in itself is an absolutely terrible situation to be in, says Lange. 27,840 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive against Gaza since it began on October 8 last year. This is according to the health authorities in Gaza. Around 1,160 Israelis, most of them civilians, were killed when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
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