‘Bracing for the worst’: Aid groups draw up Rafah contingency plans

Elizabeth Hagedorn

May 1, 2024

People walk past trucks carrying humanitarian aid that entered Gaza by truck through the Kerem Shalom (Karm Abu Salem) border crossing. — People walk past trucks carrying humanitarian aid that entered Gaza by truck through the Kerem Shalom (Karm Abu Salem) border crossing in the southern part of the Palestinian territory on Feb. 17, 2024, as they wait to be unloaded on the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt (background), amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. — SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images

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WASHINGTON — As the United Nations and aid agencies in the Gaza Strip urge Israel to abandon its pending assault on Rafah, they are quietly drawing up contingency plans for the expected invasion.

For months, they’ve warned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah would result in a humanitarian catastrophe for the more than 1.4 million people stranded in Gaza’s southernmost city who already must contend with a shortage of food, clean water and sanitation facilities. Rafah’s sprawling tent camps and UN shelters have become a refuge of last resort for Palestinians displaced — some of them multiple times — by nearly seven months of war.

“We obviously have contingency plans. We can't afford not to,” said an aid official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But at the same time, our focus right now is to appeal to all those who have influence and leverage to stop this from happening.”