Inside Rafah, American doctor Ammar Ghanem told NBC News that doctors and nurses were having to abandon their patients to evacuate their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CAIRO \u2014 As battles raged across Gaza<\/a> where the health ministry said the death toll since Oct. 7 had topped 35,000 Sunday, there was widespread panic in the enclave\u2019s southernmost city of Rafah<\/a> as tens of thousands people upped sticks and left fearing an imminent Israeli invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In parts of the north that the Israel Defense Forces<\/a> (IDF) said it had cleared months ago, Palestinians reported heavy fighting Sunday after Israeli bombardment overnight. Elsewhere, the IDF said Sunday that dozens of militants had been killed in Rafah where more than 1 million Palestinians, many displaced from elsewhere, had been seeking shelter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hamas\u2019 military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades<\/a>, said on Telegram Sunday that there had been \u201cfierce fighting\u201d to the east of the Jabalia refugee camp, near Gaza City in the north of the strip, suggesting the militant group has regrouped in the area once claimed by Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It came after heavy Israeli bombardment was reported there overnight by several Palestinian officials including lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IDF called on the civilian population to evacuate the camp in a post on Telegram Saturday. It said Hamas has attempted to \u201creassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fighting in the north \u2014 which has been largely isolated for months, prompting the United Nations to warn of famine in the region \u2014 came after the IDF issued an \u201curgent warning\u201d to civilians on Saturday to evacuate parts of Rafah<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IDF, whose troops have been battling militants in Rafah since the army seized the nearby border crossing with Egypt last week, published a map Saturday showing that sectors of the city were now considered a \u201cdangerous combat zone\u201d and warned civilians that it would \u201cact with extreme force against terrorist organizations in your area of \u200b\u200bresidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel has already sent some tanks into Rafah, and has said for <\/strong>months that it will launch a full-scale ground assault on the city. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> and other members of his government have insisted it is necessary to ensure the destruction of Hamas following the Oct. 7 attacks\u2002<\/a>on Israel that saw some 1,200 people killed and around 240 taken hostage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday more than 35,000 people had been killed since Oct. 7, most of them women and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Were Israel to invade, it would defy pressure from the U.S.\u2002<\/a>and others that have warned that such an attack threatened devastating consequences for the Palestinians who have fled there from the rest of the enclave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.N. said Sunday that an estimated 300,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee the city in a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citing the same number, the IDF said in Saturday\u2019s Telegram post that many had gone to Muwasi<\/a>, a nearby coastal area where Israel has promised an \u201cexpanded humanitarian area\u201d would await them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However the concept of \u201csafe zones\u201d has been widely questioned. An NBC News investigation\u2002<\/a>found last month that Palestinians were killed in areas of southern Gaza that the Israeli military had explicitly designated as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, said in a post on X Saturday that \u201cthe claim of \u2018safe zones\u2019 is false and misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His comments came after the U.N. on Thursday said Muwasi, where the Israeli military has instructed evacuees to go, \u201cis already without sufficient food, water, medicine, hygiene products, electricity, shelter and access to education for children; it cannot cope with a population influx.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside Rafah, Ammar Ghanem, a doctor with the Palestinian American Medical Society, told an NBC News camera crew Saturday that doctors and nurses were having to abandon their patients to evacuate their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTwo days ago, we had to have four local physicians covering the three hospitals. None of them were able to show up,\u201d he said. \u201cThey took the whole day to transport them and they came the second day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have half of the nurses on average not showing up for the same reason,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adding to the confusion, the largest telecommunications provider in the region, Paltel, said in a statement Sunday that \u201cfixed internet services have been cut off in the southern regions of the Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Facing rising anger domestically, President Joe Biden<\/a> has become increasingly critical of Israel\u2019s conduct in the war. Senior administration officials previously told NBC News<\/a> that the U.S. halted a large shipment of weapons to Israel last week over fears that they would be used to invade Rafah. And Biden said later that the U.S. would not provide<\/a> Israel with certain weapons and artillery shells if it launched a ground offensive on the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n