Israel expands Gaza assault, UN warns of ‘no safe place’

International outrage has mounted at Israel’s operations in Rafah, with at least 300,000 Palestinians fleeing over the past week

‘There is no safe place in Gaza,’ said UN high commissioner for human rights, who asked how military action could be reconciled with international humanitarian law

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An explosion is seen over Gaza on Saturday. The UN says 1.4 million people have been sheltering in Rafah. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:32pm, 12 May 2024Updated: 6:36am, 13 May 2024

Israel sent tanks into eastern Jabilia in northern Gaza on Sunday, after a night of heavy aerial and ground bombardments, killing 19 people and wounding dozens of others, health officials said.

Jabilia is the biggest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps and is home to more than 100,000 people, most of whom were descendants of Palestinians driven from towns and villages in what is now Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that led to the creation of the state of Israel.

The death toll in Israel’s military operation in Gaza is at least 35,034, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombardment has laid waste to the coastal enclave and caused a deep humanitarian crisis.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Sunday insisted a full-scale assault on the southern city of Rafah “cannot take place”, saying it could not be reconciled with international law.

All eyes have been on Rafah recently, where the population has risen to around 1.5 million after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled fighting in other areas of the enclave.

A displaced Palestinian man, who fled Jabilia after the Israeli military called on residents to evacuate, pushes children in a trolley as they make their way towards Gaza City on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

Israeli forces were battling Palestinian militants across it on Sunday, including in parts of the devastated north that the military said it cleared months ago, where Hamas has exploited a security vacuum to regroup.