WASHINGTON — As the United Nations and aid agencies in the Gaza Strip urge Israel to abandon its pending assault on Rafah, they are quietly drawing up contingency plans for the expected invasion.
For months, they’ve warned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah would result in a humanitarian catastrophe for the more than 1.4 million people stranded in Gaza’s southernmost city who already must contend with a shortage of food, clean water and sanitation facilities. Rafah’s sprawling tent camps and UN shelters have become a refuge of last resort for Palestinians displaced — some of them multiple times — by nearly seven months of war.
“We obviously have contingency plans. We can’t afford not to,” said an aid official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But at the same time, our focus right now is to appeal to all those who have influence and leverage to stop this from happening.”
If Israel doesn’t heed their warnings, UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations plan to stay in Rafah as long as is possible before relocating staff to Deir Al Balah, a city some 17 kilometers (11 miles) away on Gaza’s coastline, as well as to the closer seaside village of Al Mawasi, according to aid officials who spoke with Al-Monitor.