The Daily - Stranded in Rafah as an Israeli Invasion Looms

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of war.After months of telling residents in the Gaza Strip to move south for safety, Israel now says it plans to invade Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city. More than a million people are effectively trapped there without any clear idea of where to go.Two Gazans describe what it is like to live in Rafah right now.Guest: Ghada al-Kurd and Hussein Owda, who are among more than a million people sheltering in Rafah.Background reading: Israel’s allies and others have warned against an offensive, saying that the safety of the civilians who have sought shelter in the far south of Gaza is paramount.Palestinians in Rafah described a “night full of horror” as Israeli strikes pummeled the area during an Israeli hostage rescue operation.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. In four months of war, Israel has regularly warned residents of the Gaza Strip to move south for safety. As a result, more than a million Gazans, about half the population of the entire enclave, have ended up in the city of Rafah. Now, as the war enters its fifth month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the next phase of Israel's fight against Hamas would be in Rafah and ordered the military to draw up plans to evacuate it.

But Rafah is the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, pinned between the Egyptian border and the fighting further north. And it is not clear where the people sheltering there would evacuate to. Today, two Gazans on life in Rafah. It's Tuesday, February 20th. Hi, is this Gada? Yes. Hi, Gada. This is Sabrina Tavernisi from The New York Times, from The Daily Podcast.

Can you speak? Yes, for sure. Can you hear me well? I can hear you well. I can. Okay. Where am I speaking to you right now? Where are you?

I'm in Rafah, Rafah City, south of Gaza Strip. I hear somebody behind you. Yeah, this is the family, actually. Oh, who's in the family? My sisters, my nieces, all of us like girls inside one home. How many are you? We are about like 20. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Gada, can you identify yourself for me? Tell me your name, your age, and your profession. Yeah. Yes, I'm Ghada Alkord. Tomorrow will be my birthday. So I'll be 38 tomorrow. Happy birthday.

Yes. Thank you. And I work as a freelancer journalist here in Gaza. I used to work for international NGOs. Yep, that's it. So you say you're in Rafah, right? Can you describe Rafah right now for us? What does it look like?

What do you see around you when you go out onto the street? Well, I was like about 10 minutes ago, I was out on the street. I was going to provide the family here with some essentials and supplies. Some food, maybe some chicken or meat because we are running out of these supplies. Maybe some private essentials for me as a girl and for the girls here. Private essentials for you as a woman, meaning tampons, supplies for when you have your period. Yes. Even we can hardly find these essentials. And, you know, it's overcrowded. Like you cannot even walk in the streets. You even like have to tell the person in front of you or beside you

just to move a little bit, just to move a little bit. Can I go through? Yeah, it's very difficult for us to walk. So this is the situation here. People are living inside tents, lots of shelters you can see around you. Schools are full of displaced people. Yeah, this is the situation here in Rafah City. And did you find what you needed? Not all of it, actually. For me, I was looking for a bag

and I found something local. They made it by themselves and it was bad quality, but I have to buy it just to put my stuff inside if there is like another displacement again. So I have to buy it.

You've moved how many times in all? This is the sixth time, I think. Yeah, it's very difficult. Moving from city to a city and being in shelters, I didn't expect this. Yeah. I didn't expect this. Yeah.

On the morning of October 7th, Gada woke up in her apartment in Gaza City to the news of the attack in Israel. Everyone is like posting, what's going on, what's going on, what's going on. No one knows at that time what's happening. After maybe at 10, we know exactly what's happening. And she immediately started making plans with her siblings. And I had a brother, and I told him,

just wake up, there is something dangerous is happening right now. We need to think what we are going to do. This war will be a disaster. I said something in Arabic. It's like, we are going to eat shit. We're going to eat shit. Yes. Like the destruction will be more than you can ever imagine.

So then after one week of bombardment, of killings, of airstrikes, yeah, we realized that I had to evacuate my home with my sister and I have to go to a Shifa hospital. I spent three days there, living in front of a bathroom on the ground. And actually, I hate hospitals. So I went down and I was walking and I saw like they are bringing bodies in white bags.

They are just corpse. Yeah. And I smelled the blood and it was so disgusting. Just to smell the blood, the smell of this is around you. You know? Yeah. I couldn't bear this situation and I want to go to another place so the day they announced that the evacuation to the south I told my sister we have to flee we have

to go like it's the worst is coming and we ended up the middle area. And after the one week that we spent in the middle area, we also evacuated to Khan Yunis City. And did you have enough supplies, clothes, food, water? Was there something in particular that you wished you had had? My daughters. I'm sorry, say it again. I have two daughters. I'm a divorced woman. And at that time they were with their father. And I told him, like, can I take them with me? He told me they will be safe with me. You have too much work to do. And you have also to take care of your father and your sisters. They will be safe with me.

I'm the man. They can be with me. And we can, like, come after you. But he couldn't. So my daughters, they're still in North Gaza. Your daughters are still in North Gaza? Yes. Oh, my goodness.

Gaza. I know. That's why I don't want to leave Gaza. Do you know if they're okay? Yeah, they are okay. Thank God. I'm just checking up on them. I'm trying to call their father. But the connection is so bad.

How old are they, Gara? So the older one, she will be on the 17th of February. She will be 11. And youngest one, she will be on the 17th of February. She will be 11. And the youngest one, she will be next week. She will be nine. Oh, they're little. Yeah, for sure. And you know now the hunger.

The hunger now and the famine in north of Gaza. They don't have much food. Actually, they are running out of food. So I wish, like, the roads are open now. Maybe I will be the first one to go back. I will go. I cannot bear all of this pain, actually. It's so

hard for me to be away with them. Yeah. I want to be with them. I want to. And I know they are experiencing so much fears and horrifying things, but I want to be with them, hug them, love them, take care of them. You know, you know the situation. Why haven't they evacuated, Ghada?

Well, you know, even my sister, she didn't evacuate. Another brother, he didn't evacuate. My father, he didn't evacuate. They didn't expect that it will be like this situation. They got stuck. Yeah. And I have to tell you

that I lost my brother with his wife and daughter in one of the airstrikes. Also, my father, I lost him three weeks ago. He died because of hunger. He couldn't have his diabetes medications. And he has a stroke, a brain stroke.

So he even got injured in one of the airstrikes. It was near the house he was in. Yeah, we lost him like three weeks ago. I'm sorry, Kata. Yeah. And I have a little sister. She's younger than me and she's pregnant. Maybe this week she will deliver her baby.

And there is no hospitals over there. And we managed to call her like three days ago by video call finally. And believe me, I didn't know her. She was like an old woman, like her eyes have some dark circles. She was very weak and very thin actually. She doesn't look like she's pregnant. She's a nine-month pregnant. She told me like, I don't know how can I deliver my baby. God, that must be very frightening for her. For sure, yeah.

And she has also another child. He's just maybe two and a half years. Oh, wow. So she's caring for a two-year-old as well. Yes. Gada, going back to your own story of evacuating. So if I'm counting right, when did you get to Han Yunus? You'd been on the road for about two weeks at that point, right? The first week, we have to build a tent for us because the buildings inside the shelter, they were all very crowded. So we prefer to build a tent.

So I'm living inside a tent. It's not like a camping tent. The first night, we didn't take any covers, any blankets, anything with us. So we had to put some nylons and plastics and woods to cover us. And I remember one day I want to go to bathroom. I couldn't. And I have to wait for more than two hours in a line to go to bathroom. So then I went to one of the buildings and there was a guard there. And he told me, no, this is only for the worker who is working here.

I told him, I need to go to bathroom. He told me, no, you can't. I told him, I'm not talking about taking your heart or taking your eyes. I'm asking to go to bathroom. I opened the door and went and he was shouting on me. I told him, I don't care. I'm a human. I'm a woman.

And this is my right. Yeah. It's very humiliated, actually. You know, this is the horrible thing I can ever experience in my life. You know? Yeah. Like, the air stress, I cannot control it. The shillings, I cannot control it.

But going to bathroom, I'm just feeling like... I will argue, I will fight, I will do anything. I cannot accept, I will fight, I will do anything. I cannot accept. I understand. Yeah. Gadda, how long did you spend in Hun Yunus? Three months. Three months in Hun Yunus?

Yeah, from 20 of October till 20 of January. Three months in Han Yunus? living for three months. And I told my sister, listen, you have to come with me, pack your luggage, and we will go to Rafah. Went out through the gates, there was clashes behind us. There was like bulldozers, Israeli bulldozers, Israeli tanks. And they opened fire on people, even like sniping shots. And it was like above our heads. So I told her to run as much as she can. And yes, we went like from the same way I came and we directly moved to Rafah. It become like night and we went through this road and it was near to the border.

I saw the Egyptian side and I was saying, you know, this is the line between Egypt and Gaza. It was so painful for me to see that only like five meters, like it's a wave, like five meters. And this part is safe. No airstrikes, nothing. They are having their own country. And there was light. Actually, there were lots of light. And this was very painful for me to feel like you are living all the days

inside the dark. You are living inside darkness. Yeah. You are living inside darkness. Does it make you angry at Egypt, given that it could theoretically open the border, right? Allow people into safety, into the light? No. Why should I be angry on them?

I mean, they could let people in, right? But, okay, if I'm in your home and I came to your home, this is your property. If I came without permission, would you allow for me? Right. I'm not defending them, but this is their own country. Okay, we are under war, but at least we have the right to have our own state, our own country. So you're saying, basically, Egypt has the right not to let people in because people living in Gaza aren't part of Egypt? We are part of Palestine, okay?

We are not part of Egypt. We are not a plane to Egypt. We are not going to live in Egypt. We have our own country. We want to be here. Why should we live in another country? If we want to spend a vacation there, okay. Let's go to Egypt, all of us. But this is our country. We have to stay in our country. As they live in their

country, we have the right to live in our country. Learn here, work here, build our country. If we leave Gaza, who will stay here? And what did you think when you saw that news about a potential invasion of Rafah?

I have no other place to go. Honestly, I don't have any place. This is the last place that I can evacuate to. I don't have any other place to go. Like, I don't have, like, all my friends' houses. They are full of people, or my relatives even. So I'm running out of places.

Yeah. This is the last option that we have. Does it feel a little bit like the end of things? Like the end of what's happening? The end of the war, maybe?

I hope so, Wallah. If it can be the end, I hope so. But not with the ground invasion to Rafah. Please. Stop. I mean, someone tell them invasion to Rafah. Please, stop. Someone tell them not to do this.

I'm just like, I'm expressing my feelings. Gada, back in October when the war first started, we spoke to a woman who was fleeing from the north, and she said at some point in our conversation, what do they want? Why don't they just tell us what they want? Do they want to just throw us into the sea? Like, just be honest and don't keep us in all of this pain. Tell us what you want to do with us.

Does that resonate with you at all? you are fighting with a group, okay? What is my fault? It's not my fault. Just avoid the civilians. Just avoid us. By that group, you mean Hamas? Yes. Your fighting is with them. And what of the Israelis' contention that Hamas is in fact hiding among civilians,

that that is a tactic? I know that you are going to say these questions. I know. I've been asked, like, many times these questions. But at least try to avoid us. You are killing us. Yeah. We are following, like, the people, the normal people, the civilians,

they are following their orders. But whenever you are going to like the people, the normal people, the civilians, they are following their orders. But whenever you are going to a safer place, the fighting is following you. That's the game you're talking about. Yeah, it's a game, like it's a game. You said it's a safer place, then the next day you are attacking the safer place. You said it's a safer place. I'm not saying it's a safer place. You said it's a safer place. The next day, you are attacking the safer place. You said it's a safer place. I'm not saying it's a safer place. You said go there to avoid the civilians.

But you came to the safer place. How can I believe you? What to do? But what will you do? Will you try to run if you have to? Would you? Tell me where to run. Tell me.

Just tell me where to go. We'll be right back. The Israeli military says it's rescued two of the hostages abducted by Hamas during a raid in Rafah overnight. Dozens of Palestinians were reported to have been killed in the early hours of Monday. Israel's offensive in Rafah looks set to continue. IDF appears poised to expand its ground war further south where thousands of civilians have fled for safety. Safe? What does the word even mean in Gaza today? Actually, it's obvious that we are not there because of what happened last night. But there is no other place to go. There is no other place to leave.

We don't know what shall we do. The day after an Israeli military raid into Rafah, we talked to Hussein Aouda. He'd been living in Rafah for about three weeks. Starting from my house, the Nasser area at Gaza City, to another neighborhood, another neighborhood, another governor, another governor, and finally here in Rafah. Hussein had been displaced four times since the war began. And in Rafah, he'd rented a house that was under construction, without windows or doors, for his wife and three children to live in. Actually, this is my kids next to me. My eldest daughter, Lee, nine years old.

My son, Mahmoud, six years old. And Zain, 16 months. 16 months old? Yep. Hussein, tell me, what are you doing for food now? What are you eating? Actually, we are suffering for every basic need. For water, because each day you are going to fill the water.

You are going to carry kind of gallons for bathroom, for everything. There is a huge lack of gas, cooking gas. So people are depending on wood, on starting fire for cooking. What do they cook, actually? Actually, I get canned food, beans, canned meat, etc. And all the people are just eating the canned food. Actually, the best thing we are facing from my perspective during the war, actually, I lost around 30 kilos.

It's the only good thing that happened to me. You lost 30 kilos. That's a lot of weight to lose. Yeah, I needed to lose it, actually. And it's the only good thing that happened to me. Hussein? Hi. My goodness, it's very difficult to get through. Yes, thank God there is kind of connection right now.

Even if it's very hard to call anyone. Yes. Basically, it's a challenge, actually. It sounds like there's honking in the background, Hussein. What is that? Where are you right now? Actually, right now I'm down on the street. A lot of crowds here. Imagine, there is more than a million dead people are here in this small city

at the border with Egypt. What does it look like? It's dark and a lot of crowds of people just walking. What does it look like? Actually, I see the people like zombies walking on the street. They are walking in a hopeless way. They are looking like not being alive, you know. It's indescribable, actually, because their faces don't show life. They look like just... They are lost. Thousands of people, all of them are lost in this place.

Yeah. Are you lost? Yeah, for sure I'm lost. Because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what shall I do. You know, it was a very scary night last night. Yeah. A lot of bombardment and shooting started.

A lot of shooting. We were asleep, actually. And all of us woke up due to the sound. The house was shaking due to the bombing. due to the bombing and my son and daughter were screaming and asking me for hugging them and hiding them and I just hugged them and found the most safe place which is near the stairs and we just sat in there trained to be alive be safe. And all of us were scared to be shot or be bombed for no reason. In the morning, I got to go outside to get kind of a grocery for the house. And my daughter said to me, we don't need to eat.

Just stay with us. It's very dangerous to get, we don't need to eat. Just stay with us. It's very dangerous to get outside. Don't move. Yeah. And I convinced her that I'm a big man. I can manage myself. And we got to eat. And I'm going to be back.

Don't worry about me. Just be a polite girl and listen to your mom. Yeah. And did you find food? Yeah. I went to a shelter next door and I found tomatoes. I bought canned meat. I bought the spaghetti and went back to the home and did the baguette. Because it was a very difficult night.

A friend told me that there were more than 70 people are killed in Jaffa last night. So I'm thinking that it could be off any day. We should live the best lives we can live. And enjoy every second and a minute as much as we can. So I got to prepare something special for them. So you got the spaghetti. Yeah. Hussein, what was your life like before all of this started, before October 7th?

Tell me a little bit about you. October 7th. Tell me a little bit about you. Actually, I was very busy. I just finished building my house, which was supposed to move into on the 7th of October. Oh, wow. on the 7th of October. Oh, wow. Bought the furniture and everything, and it was to receive the furniture on 7th of October.

Oh, my goodness. But I didn't receive the furniture, and my new house is totally destroyed. Ugh. Actually, it took me around two years to finish it. I got to design every corner with my wife. What colors to use, what materials to use. And actually, it was very beautiful, actually. We did a great kitchen, an open kitchen to the living room.

And we had a big balcony. And we were thinking that this big balcony would be a place to sit in, drinking coffee and tea and eating fresh eggs. the shed. And let's not talking about that. Sorry about

the mudding. No. nothing. Oh. Sorry for that. Are you okay? Alhamdulillah, yeah, I'm fine. What are you doing now? Where are you going to go? I'm just walking right now.

Like a zombie. Thank God that it's dark. No one can see the tears on my eyes. Actually, for me, at least I got money i can buy food i got a roof above me yeah i'm not gonna yeah but imagine the other people who are sleeping on the seashore here. They got no toilets. They got no bathrooms. And it's not a life for humans, actually. A lot of diseases, a lot of malnutrition.

And the people are really suffering here. They are really suffering. It's inhuman what we are living in. And we did nothing. It's not our fault. We did nothing. We are just normal people just trying to live our lives. Why are we here?

Why this is happening to us? why this is happening to us. Sometimes I think my kids should be at school, should be studying. Are they going to join schools again? There will be schools. They have to live a normal life. You know,

at the beginning, I tried to convince my children that we are doing a kind of camping. And my daughter just kept telling me that, no, it's not camping. If it's camping, at least we should have living bags. How is it going to be camping? People do camping as a forest, but there is no forest. We should start fire and we need marshmallow to do on fire. And there is nothing to do. We are just living on the street. It's not camping. Actually, I don't get the proper answer for her. And I just said to her that you should enjoy your time with your family. At least we are all together.

And we are surviving, yeah. It's kind of special experience. We are living together and you should enjoy it. Do you think they'll remember this, Hussein? Are you worried they'll remember this? Are you hopeful that your 16-month-old might not remember this? There is no proper life for him nor for any child to live in. There is nothing. And actually, when I see the pictures and the videos of Gaza City where Abiy used to live,

it's totally destroyed. So where is he going to live? It's not a proper place to live in and it will affect him, deeply affect him, living in such a situation. It's their childhood. It's my life. It's our lives, which is stolen from us. What does that feel like? No power. Nothing.

No choices. We don't know what to do. This isn't declared any safe place to go to. You know? So, we are just sitting here, waiting for our destiny. And this could be a good destiny. We don't know.

Maybe we are going to survive. We are going to die. We don't know. Maybe we are going to survive. Maybe we are going to die. We don't know. It's our destiny. It's our fate. انا انا بصحنا هنعمل كامبيج بس. اخينا كامبيج. حلو الكامبيج? وبص الكامبيج في الغابة. وفيش سليبين باك. اه. فيش كينت? بلاش لايت. بلاش لايت فهو فيه ضاو وخلاص ما بنزمناش بلاش لايت. لا يوجد مكان لتشتري المرشدات لا لأننا نريد أن يكون المرشدات مرتبطة بشكل أكبر مرشدات مرتبطة بشكل أكبر؟

نحن في الشنال ماذا سنفعل؟ لا أريد أن أستغرق لأنني أريد أن أستغرق لأنني أريد أن أستغرق لأنني أريد أن أستغرق I just remember the silly questions we used to play in our childhood. Who will you choose to save? We never imagined that we can be in a real situation where we got to choose. Unfortunately, I can't save anyone.

I only can try to save one, two, three at maximum. to flee at maximum. But right now I'm thinking about evacuating my kids to save them from the hell we are living in. A day after we spoke to Hussein, he sent a voice memo saying that he was trying to decide whether to get his family out of Gaza, through Egypt. The border is officially closed, but Gazans say that with enough money,

you can get people out. It's very hard to decide. And I cannot make a decision to try to evacuate my kids so they can be safe, they can go to school, but they are going to be far away from me. Which I don't know if I can handle. Or all of us just can stay here together facing the same destiny. It's really hard to take a decision. It's so difficult.

Would you do that? I don't think so. Why? Why would you not leave? First of all, because of my daughter. And then I'm so attached to this land, actually. I love Gaza. But even to save your own life?

My daughter's life is more important than my life. Yeah. I will not be comfortable outside Gaza. On Sunday, Hussein made his decision. He said he paid to get his wife and children across the border. But he said he stayed behind to take care of his elderly parents and to pay back the money he borrowed to get his family to safety. Gada remains in Rafah. remains in Rafah.

And, over the weekend, Netanyahu said that negotiations over a ceasefire and a potential hostage release with Hamas had reached an impasse, and that his government was pushing ahead with plans for an invasion of Rafah, despite international pressure to call it off. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today.

On Monday, the widow of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in a Russian prison on Friday, appeared on her husband's YouTube channel for the first time, pledging in a fiercely emotional tone to continue the fight that her husband began. Yulia Navalnaya, who is 47 and had long shunned the spotlight, urged her husband's followers to take action, however small, against the regime of Vladimir Putin, saying, quote, I ask you to share my rage, anger and hatred of those who have dared to kill our future. of those who have dared to kill our future. She said that the best way to honor her husband's legacy was to fight more desperately and furiously than before.

Meanwhile, the Russian authorities are refusing to release Navalny's body to his mother in a remote Arctic town close to the prison where he died. They told her that her son's body would be subject to a, quote, chemical examination for the next 14 days. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Bonja, Lindsay Garrison, and Stella Tan. It was edited by Paige Cowett and Liz O'Balin. Fact-checked by Susan Lee and Rochelle Bonja.

Contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Corey Shrubble. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Hiba Yazbek and Yusur Alhalou. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi.

See you tomorrow.