Displaced Palestinian survivors describe ‘nightmarish’ scenes about Israel’s sudden attack on Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood.

Sally Ibrahim, The New Arab, 24 March, 2025

On the outskirts of Gaza’s Rafah, in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood, scenes of horror unfolded overnight. The sky glowed red from relentless shelling, as Israeli tanks advanced from all directions, and Israeli warplanes raining down missiles without mercy. 

According to official Palestinian estimates, over 5,000 Palestinians are trapped beneath the blazing sky in the area.

Days ago, the Palestinian residents of Tel al-Sultan thought the worst was over. After months of relentless bombardment, a fragile ceasefire offered a brief glimmer of hope. Families cautiously returned to their shattered homes, trying to salvage fragments of their lives from beneath the rubble. 

But, yesterday, on Sunday, the thin veneer of peace was violently stripped away when Israeli tanks stormed the neighbourhood without warning. Drones circled above, issuing orders over loudspeakers for immediate evacuation. Those who hesitated were met with gunfire.

Hope collapsed into terror as thousands of Palestinian families fled with whatever they could carry, or nothing at all.

Race against death

“We were forced to leave our houses barefoot […] We could not carry anything. Clothes, food and everything were left behind,” Samah Lubbad, a displaced Palestinian woman, described to The New Arab. “I saw a man carrying his son’s lifeless body on his shoulder, tears streaming silently down his face. People were screaming; children were crying. We were walking without a destination and just trying to survive.” 

“It was like the Day of Judgment,” Umm Suleiman Jaber, an elderly Palestinian woman, said to TNA. “I could not walk, and I begged the Israeli soldier to stay in the house, but he put a gun to my head and told me I had to leave if I wanted to stay alive.”

“I had no choice,” she said, voice trembling. “I crawled on all fours through shattered glass and rubble. My hands and knees were bleeding. I could hear people screaming around me and see bodies lying in the street. I kept crawling, not knowing if I would survive, but I kept going.”

Umm Mohammed Shaath, a mother of two, ran with her baby in one arm, and with the other dragging her older son as gunshots pierced the air.

“I turned and saw my son on the ground, blood pouring from his stomach. I could not carry him. Bullets were flying, and the tanks were getting closer. I had to leave him there. I could hear him screaming, ‘Mama!’ but I could not turn back. If I had stayed, we would have died together. Forgive me, my son,” she cried to TNA. 

“We are always paying the price,” Abu Khaled, a father of five who fled Tel al-Sultan, remarked to TNA. “The negotiators sit in their comfortable chairs while we bury our children. The Palestinian and Israeli officials, even the Arab leaders, do not care about us. We are nothing more than numbers to them.”

A ‘pit of death’

According to eyewitnesses, despite Palestinian residents abiding by Israel’s orders to evacuate their houses, Israeli soldiers deliberately beat them and have detained dozens of men and boys. The eyewitnesses add that the Israeli soldiers dragged these men and boys into an empty yard, where a large pit had been dug. Then, the Israeli soldiers apparently forced the detainees to kneel at the edge of the pit and, without hesitation, shot some of them in the head.

This is what Mahmoud al-Amwasi, from Rafah, who was among those arrested and survived, described to TNA. Before arresting him, the Israeli army shot al-Amwasi and despite his injuries, Israeli soldiers dragged him into the pit, where dozens of others were tied up. “I was bleeding heavily,” Mahmoud recalled. “I begged for help, but one of the soldiers hit me with a rifle-butt. They put me in a military vehicle and took me to Kerem Shalom.” 

“They interrogated me for hours, pressing on my wounds while asking me about resistance fighters and weapons,” he added. “I told them I was a civilian, but they did not care. One soldier said, ‘If you do not talk, we will let you bleed to death.’ After the interrogation, they threw me on the road near the border. I crawled until an old man found me and took me to the hospital.”

Other survivors described to TNA that the Israeli army committed executions in the streets. 

“I saw Israeli soldiers stop a young man carrying a small child on his shoulders. They forced the child to get down, then shot the father in the head right in front of him. The child sat next to his father’s body, crying,” said Dalal Abu Hamda, a Palestinian woman from Rafah. 

“One of the soldiers laughed then shot the child too,” she added. 

The Israeli military claims it is “doing its best not to harm Palestinian civilians as it attacks Hamas in Gaza”.

“Israel is not fighting the civilians in Gaza and is doing everything that international law requires to mitigate harm to civilians,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed in a statement.

He went on to blame Hamas for civilian deaths, saying the group “fights in civilian dress, from civilian homes and from behind civilians”, putting them in danger. 

Ambulances under siege

As the attack on Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan escalated, ambulance and civil defence crews attempted to reach the wounded. Four ambulances set out, but none returned. Communication with the crew was lost, and the sound of explosions echoed in the background.

“We have information that an [Israeli] shell directly targeted the ambulance. The destruction is massive. Those crews might be trapped under the rubble or dead. A paramedic sent a voice message before the connection was cut off, saying: ‘They are targeting us […] We are hiding under the car. We do not know if we will survive.’ After that, the communication was cut,” Rafah’s mayor Ahmed al-Sufi said to TNA. 

Since then, no one has been able to contact the teams. Due to the shelling, even the Red Crescent has been unable to dispatch new rescue crews.

“What is happening in Rafah is not a military operation. It is ethnic cleansing,” said the mayor. “People are dying under the rubble. The wounded are denied treatment. We do not want aid or condemnation. We want the massacres to stop. Children and women are dying under the rubble, while paramedics stand helpless at the gates of the neighbourhood.”  

Israel claims the resumption of its war on Gaza came after Hamas repeatedly refused to reach a deal to extend the 19 January ceasefire agreement.

Hamas says Israel failed to meet its commitments and refused to negotiate the second phase of the truce as per the agreement, brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar.

The truce saw dozens of Gaza-held Israeli and foreign captives released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel.

Since last week, Israel has killed over 670 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,200 others, mostly civilians.