![Palestinians flee Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, May 12, 2024.](https://img.lemde.fr/2024/05/13/0/0/3292/2195/664/0/75/0/c95ca3c_1715610758279-588610.jpg)
The photo arrived during the night of Monday May 13 to Tuesday May 14, sent thanks to a rare Internet connection: the portrait of a sleeping baby, peaceful face, swaddled in a huge orange blanket. Youssef is one week old. His mother, Mona Safi, gave birth by cesarean section on May 7 in a hospital in Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip. The 25-year-old young mother was lucky, she was able to benefit from anesthesia, soberly explains the father, Mohammed, in a WhatsApp conversation with The world.
Just hours after the birth, under fire from bombs, the little family was forced to evacuate. “We took my brother-in-law’s car”, explains the 30-year-old dentist, heading to the center of the coastal enclave. This is their third trip since the start of the Israeli offensive on October 7, 2023, in response to the attack perpetrated that day by Hamas in the south of the Jewish state.
“There are eight of us in a 70 square meterreports Mohammed Safi. Food is very expensive and very scarce since the Israeli army entered Rafah (May 7). For example, there is no more chicken or meat. Same for fruit. Vegetables are extremely expensive. A kilo of potatoes costs 10 dollars (9 euros), 1 kilo of lemons, 30 dollars. » Drinking water is only available once every three days. Mona cannot breastfeed. The family spends their savings on overpriced powdered milk. She is now awaiting the reopening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt, the only way out of Gaza’s hell, closed since Israeli troops took control. For a final exodus, this time out of Gaza, Mohammed hopes: “My son deserves to live like all other children in the world, in peace. »
In early May, Gaza briefly thought its ordeal was over. “People followed the negotiations (between Hamas and the Israelis)they had the hope that the war would end, that this life in tents, this daily life of humiliation, would end., says Mohammed Al Najjar, a law student from Rafah. On the evening of May 6, residents even took to the streets to celebrate Hamas’ announcement of the acceptance of a ceasefire agreement, thinking that the war was coming to an end.
But Israel dissociated itself from this document, and the next day its tanks destroyed the sign “I love Gaza” erected at the entrance to the Rafah terminal, on the border with Egypt. This attack marked the start of the land invasion of the last Gazan city not to have been invested by the forces of the Jewish state. Israel assures that it is a limited offensive, but its leaders proclaim their determination to overcome the last battalions of Hamas, entrenched according to them in the city. American officials, however, indicated that, according to their information, the leader of the Islamist movement and mastermind of the attacks of October 7, 2023, Yahya Sinouar, would not be there.
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