Children waving the Palestinian flag over the ruins of the destroyed Al-Farouq Mosque in Al-Shaboura Camp in Rafah (Al-Jazeera)

No one could have expected, in any way, that Rafah would receive more than 1,500,000 displaced people from other cities in the Gaza Strip at the end of 2023. Due to the barbaric bombing by the Israeli occupation army of homes, hospitals and infrastructure in all cities of the Gaza Strip.

In 2003, I participated in a lecture at the Faculty of Engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza on water network engineering in the Gaza Strip. The task was to know the future population number after 20 years for the city of Rafah, based on which the virtual water network would be designed. The population at that time in Rafah was approximately 150 thousand. population, and while estimates differed among students about the future population size; Because there was more than one method, it ranged between 200,000 and 300,000, and although such calculations put some margins in the numbers of immigration and displacement, in addition to the rates of natural population increase, the scenario of the presence of one million and 500 thousand Palestinians in Rafah would not have occurred to anyone.

At the beginning of the aggression, through massacres against civilians and allowing small amounts of aid in the south of the Gaza Strip with false promises of the existence of safe places, the occupation tried to push the population towards Rafah, and then implement the displacement plan, which failed for many reasons, the most important of which is the rejection of the Palestinian people and their roots in their land, despite all Death and starvation. Therefore, the occupation, which seemed confused regarding the future of Gaza after the aggression, resorted to targeting all manifestations of sovereignty and the requirements for the existence of a local administration in the Gaza Strip, especially in the place where the largest population is located, which is Rafah Governorate.

Demographic pressure

The city of Rafah is located in the far south of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, and is 35 kilometers away from the center of Gaza City. The area of ​​Rafah is about 63 square kilometers, and constitutes 20% of the area of ​​the Gaza Strip. The population density in Rafah before the recent Israeli aggression was considered one of the highest in the world. It used to be approximately 5,000 people per square kilometer, and now it has increased after the number of Palestinians in it reached one and a half million, reaching 27 thousand people per square kilometer.

Given that there are many places near the eastern border of Rafah that are controlled by the occupation, and the presence of many places where the displaced cannot be present, the population is concentrated in about 30 square kilometers of Rafah, and thus this raises the population density to more than 50 thousand. People per square kilometer, which is the highest rate in the world, in addition to the rates close to it, such as the percentage of displaced Rohingya in refugee camps in Bangladesh in 2017, which reached 40 thousand people per square kilometer, and they were not under war and siege, as is the case in Rafah. currently.

The Gaza Strip was considered one of the most densely populated geographical areas in the world before the aggression, and now that this density has increased tenfold, we are talking about an absolutely unprecedented situation that would paralyze the work of any administrative or governmental apparatus, even if there was no bombing and security situation. serious; Because of aggression, siege and starvation.

Various cities around the world have witnessed a lack of security and the spread of violence, such as Kinshasa and Rio de Janeiro. Municipalities have failed to provide services due to population increase, without a war of extermination or siege. So what if these factors are added? For example, we may point out here that the number of workers in the Rafah municipality is only 200 people, providing services to one and a half million displaced people.

However, the home front in Rafah also demonstrated unprecedented steadfastness, extreme patience and endurance despite the demographic pressure. Many mechanisms were also proposed to control the security, health and economic situation, equitably distribute humanitarian aid, and manage shelter centers and emergency and hygiene teams.

Since the beginning of the aggression, the Municipality of Rafah has carried out thousands of tasks to rescue and evacuate the wounded, bury the martyrs, reopen the streets, remove rubble, and organize asylum centers. The security and economic establishment has also worked to organize the situation, and the police have secured aid trucks and faced chaos and crime.

The targeting of Faiq al-Mabhouh - the director of the police in Gaza and responsible for coordinating with the tribes and UNRWA to secure aid in Gaza - is an extension of a series of Israeli steps to target the elements of Hamas’ sovereignty in the Gaza Strip.

Chaos parallel to the threat

It has become known that the occupation government is using the threat of a ground invasion of Rafah. To put pressure on the process of negotiating a comprehensive deal on a ceasefire, at least for the time being, and even taking the ground operation scenario into account, there is a dangerous parallel path undertaken by the Israeli occupation that depends on creating a state of chaos in Rafah by targeting all elements of stability, order, and manifestations of sovereignty. .

To begin with, the occupation government only allowed a limited number of food trucks and relief materials to enter through the Rafah crossing, and these trucks did not meet even the minimum needs of this large human mass that gathered in the city of Rafah. According to the mayor of Rafah, the amount of aid that entered is only sufficient for about 10% of the population.

Thus, through this limited and calculated amount of aid, the occupation government wanted to create a rift between society and the resistance by putting pressure on the popular support, with regard to basic needs.

Also, the distribution of this limited aid will not reach the entire population, and the occupation is counting on this to arouse discontent and pave the way for a state of chaos and control of aid by force. This is what happened in limited cases, which were dealt with by the police in Rafah, which continued their work despite the great danger posed. He stares at it, as the police worked to protect the back of the resistance, preserve the home front, confront security and economic violations, combat crime, pursue suspects, secure aid trucks, take into account the distribution process using proper methods, and sell at the specified prices.

Targeting the police and relief committees

In order to make the scenario of chaos, security chaos, and disruption of internal security a success, the Israeli occupation worked to target the civilian police forces in the city of Rafah. Dozens of government police commanders and members in Gaza were martyred in the city of Rafah, by targeting personal cars or known police cars, while securing them. Humanitarian aid.

The police presence in Rafah is a kind of administrative control of the government in Gaza, which greatly disturbs the Israeli occupation government, and shows the failure of its plans related to the goals of the war, or the so-called next day.

Given the importance of maintaining the security situation, new supportive images have emerged in light of the systematic targeting of the police, namely the People’s Protection Committees, which are organized committees that are present in the markets, organize long queues in front of bakeries, stores, and banks, and prevent merchants from exploitation and raising prices. Perhaps the most important and comprehensive goal is to prevent the occupation’s goal of spreading chaos among this large population.

It is likely that the occupation's plans to attack the security and sovereignty situation in Gaza will fail, especially if we consider that after all the destruction in the areas of the northern Gaza Strip, the security and police situation returned to control the situation after the withdrawal of the occupation forces, and it had clear success in securing aid in the northern Gaza Strip. Gaza a few days ago, and for this reason the occupation returned to targeting a number of its cadres in clear insistence on the policy followed by the occupation.

Targeting Faiq al-Mabhouh - the director of the police in Gaza and responsible for coordinating with the tribes and UNRWA to secure aid in Gaza - is an extension of a series of Israeli steps to target the elements of Hamas’ sovereignty in the Gaza Strip.

In another dimension, it serves the occupation’s goal of destroying any manifestations of governmental and administrative control. In addition to the police responsible for security, the occupation continued to target people and local institutions responsible for arranging the situation of humanitarian aid and relief affairs. Even the institutions affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) were not spared, but were in Target eye; Because the occupation aims through this targeting to eliminate any organized administrative structure that can manage the situation in Palestine in a way that does not serve its agenda. The occupation has killed more than 130 people working in the relief and humanitarian field.

In this context, on March 13, 2024, the occupation forces targeted a United Nations food distribution center in the city of Rafah, killing 4 people, including two UNRWA employees and those responsible for emergency committees and serving people in the city of Rafah.

Home front

The occupying state realizes the difficulty of eliminating the military apparatus of the Hamas movement, and that is why it took revenge on the popular incubator supporting the resistance. Then, it not only killed more than 31 thousand Palestinians, most of them women and children, but it is still working to dismantle all forms of sovereignty, governance, and stability, and any administrative structures that seek to To maintain security and manage the relief situation; Thinking that this will succeed in paving the way for its future visions for the Gaza Strip, which is why it will remain concerned with spreading chaos in Rafah, and this requires caution against all plans, and flexibility in developing confrontation tools.

This behavior, which seeks to destroy all components of governance and administration in Gaza, always belongs to an Israeli strategy based on not recognizing the existence of the Palestinian person, and the lack of the components of his entity. Therefore, it is unlikely that the occupying state will back down from the policy of destroying the components of Palestinian entity despite its lack of results. So far, but equally, the Palestinians will always be able to develop new forms that take into account national priorities, and maintain a kind of national administration despite facing the most horrific types of genocide in this era.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.