How Gaza’s ‘safe’ city Rafah came to be on the precipice of catastrophe – visualised

With 1.5 million people now in Rafah, these visuals show how destruction has travelled from north to south, leaving Gazan civilians with nowhere to turn

Last October, following the Hamas attacks, Israel’s military delivered evacuation orders for many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, telling them to head south for their own safety.

Multiple evacuation orders ensued, and it is now estimated that more than 1.5 million Palestinians are taking refuge in and around the southern city of Rafah, vastly swelling its pre-war population of 280,000.