Over 450,000 Palestinians, many already internally displaced, have fled Rafah in the past week alone since Israel launched an offensive on the city. Another 100,000 have been forced to flee homes in the north of Gaza amid escalated bombing and ground attacks. Among the recently redisplaced is our guest, the Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri, who joins us from a crowded shelter outside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. “Displacement has been weaponized,” al-Satarri says, citing the experiences of families who have been displaced as many as eight times since the start of Israel’s assault. “People are suffering. They are deprived of everything,” al-Satarri adds, due to Israel’s seizure and closure of the Rafah border crossing, preventing food, water, supplies or aid from reaching the famine-stricken population. “They are trying to prepare the Palestinians for full subjugation,” he continues. Life in Gaza is “unimaginable; however, Gazans are living it.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.