Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hamas in an expanding offensive into southern Gaza on Wednesday, forcing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians to cram into a city close to the Egyptian border to avoid Israeli bombardment.
However, many feared they would not be safe in Rafah either with their options for refuge dwindling.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had already fled from northern Gaza to the south during the two-month-old war between Israel and the Palestinian enclave’s ruling Islamist militant movement that it is trying to wipe out.
The latest exodus leaves many displaced Palestinians increasingly cornered near the fortified Egyptian border, in an
