Terrified and exhausted, thousands flee feared imminent assault on Rafah

By mid-morning, overloaded trucks, carts and donkeys were filling the streets of Rafah. Under dark skies and a cold, unseasonable rain, thousands were setting out on a halting journey through crowded, rubble-strewn streets and sprawling tented camps.

The roof of at least one car was piled high with mattresses. Another had a wheelchair stowed in the boot. Children walked through rain-filled potholes and craters or sat on belongings gathered on battered trolleys.

Their destination was the coastal area about three miles away designated, according to the leaflets dropped by the Israeli military, as a safe zone.

Among those fleeing was Ruqaya Yahya Baba, 18, whose father had already set out to find a tent big enough for the family of 10. She and her relatives had loaded a battered pickup truck with bags and suitcases early in the morning.

Related: Forcibly displacing Rafah civilians would be war crime, France warns Israel

Like all of those crowded into Gaza’s southernmost city, she feared that the long-threatened attack by the Israeli military was now imminent. “We are terrified and physically and mentally exhausted,” Baba said. “We have been displaced five times so far during this war.”

Her family had been on the move since being forced to flee the northern town of Beit Lahia in the early days of the conflict, which was triggered by a surprise attack in October launched by Hamas into southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Her most recent home was a very crowded house in eastern Rafah belonging to a family friend.

The previous night had been “horrible and fearful”, she said. “Our neighbourhood was being showered by bombs … from dusk to dawn.”

She added: “I lost my mother and brother in the 2008 war [between Israel and Hamas in Gaza] and I am afraid that I could lose more of family members, my relatives or friends in this war.”

Gaza authorities said Israeli airstrikes on Rafah overnight and on Monday morning killed at least 26 people. In all, more than 34,500 have died in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive, mostly women and children.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a group of armed men and the site from where a mortar barrage had been fired on Sunday. That attack had killed four Israeli soldiers.

Abdullah Abu Heish, 45, said he was fleeing with his family to the house of a relative in a western neighbourhood of Rafah.

“The Israeli army warned us to evacuate our area. We will try to take the luggage as soon as possible. We are trying to escape death [but] leaving possessions and memories behind that could be wiped out at any moment,” he said.

“We are very frustrated because we were expecting the world to protect us and prevent this [offensive], but unfortunately it is happening now.”

Rafah is now home to about a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza during the war, as well as a prewar population of 300,000, and is a key logistics hub for the humanitarian effort in the territory. International powers including the US have sought to dissuade Israel from launching an attack into the city.

Hanah Saleh, 40, who had already been displaced from Tal al-Zaatar in northern Gaza to Rafah, said: “We are very scared and afraid because it’s not easy to move from one place to another, from displacement to displacement.”

Many residents were reluctant to move to the designated humanitarian zone of al-Mawasi. Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar, 36, said he and 12 family members had reached al-Mawasi to find it was already packed.

“It does not have enough room for us to make tents because they are [already] full of displaced people … Where can we go? We do not know,” he said.

Many in Rafah cannot move elderly or very ill relatives who might not survive the harsh conditions in al-Mawasi, a sandy area that has few amenities and has been repeatedly bombed. Intermittent communications access in Rafah, constant power outages, scarce fuel and a shortage of cash make organising any evacuation very difficult.

Sami Abu Rumi, 45, said he would try to host relatives living in east Rafah in his small apartment in west Rafah. Al-Mawasi was “already overcrowded and lacks necessary infrastructure and services to house this increasing number of displaced people”, he said.

Israeli officials say they need to send troops into Rafah to destroy four battalions of Hamas fighters and capture or kill key leaders hiding in tunnels under the city. They accuse Hamas of using civilians, including hostages, as human shields – a charge the Islamist organisation denies.

“This is an evacuation plan to get people out of harm’s way,” an Israeli military spokesperson said. “This is limited in scope and not a wide-scale evacuation of Rafah.”

Hamas said in statement that Palestinian militant groups, led by its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, were “ready to defend our people and defeat the enemy”.