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Middle East conflict

Over 360,000 people flee Gaza’s Rafah in one week due to Israeli operation — UNRWA

According to it, residents of the northern Gaza Strip have also been forced to flee their homes to escape the shelling

BEIRUT, May 13. /TASS/. More than 360,000 Palestinians have left the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah over the past week due to the start of the Israeli military operation, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported.

"Nearly 360,000 people have fled Rafah since the first evacuation order a week ago," the agency said in a statement.

According to it, residents of the northern Gaza Strip have also been forced to flee their homes to escape the shelling. "There’s nowhere to go," UNRWA pointed out on its X page.

On May 6, the Israeli army announced that it had begun preparations to evacuate the population of eastern Rafah neighborhoods. On May 7, the Israel Defense Forces announced the start of a military operation in a number of areas in the eastern part of the city and the taking of control of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border with Egypt. On May 10, Kan radio said that Israel's military cabinet had approved a "limited expansion" of the military operation in Rafah on May 9. The next day, the Israeli military ordered residents of more neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city to evacuate to humanitarian zones.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 240 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes have also been reported on the West Bank.

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Ukrainian troops captured: situation in Kursk Region

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