CAIRO, May 14. /TASS/. Some 450,000 people were forced to leave the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip last week due to the Israeli operation, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported.

"UNRWA estimates that nearly 450,000 people have been forcibly displaced from Rafah since May 6," the agency said in a statement posted 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. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing on May 10 that the US does not consider these Israeli actions to be an invasion of Rafah or a major military operation there.

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.