GAZA, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Naema Safi, a 57-year-old Palestinian woman, has been living in a state of fear and anxiety after Israel threatened to expand its ground offensive to Gaza's southern Rafah City, the last refuge for many displaced Palestinians.

"I can hardly deal with the current situation since we arrived in Rafah as we are struggling to live a normal life," the woman told Xinhua. "If the army starts its operation in the city, it means that we will go to hell."

Safi is one of the about 1.5 million people in Gaza who were forced to relocate to the border town of Rafah to escape from the Israeli attacks.

But Rafah offers no permanent peace. The Israeli army has intensified its military operation and the ground invasion in adjacent Khan Younis city, sparking fears that the army will reach the border town soon.

On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that they had "succeeded in disbanding al-Qassam Brigades in Khan Younis city," and would continue its operation Rafah.

"The Israeli army realizes the great importance of the Rafah area in resolving the battle," Israeli army radio reported, adding that the tunnels in that area are the routes "through which the huge arsenal of weapons discovered in Gaza was smuggled."

The border city is also a lifeline for the besieged enclave, which receives food and medicine aid from foreign countries and United Nations institutions through its land crossing with Egypt.

"The possible Israeli attack on Rafah where hundreds of thousands of displaced sheltered would push things towards the abyss," Samih al-Satari, a Rafah-based Palestinian man said to Xinhua.

Forty-five-year-old Walid Radwan, who lives with his six-member family in a tent on a public street in Rafah, said the entry of Israeli forces into Rafah would leave the displaced with two choices: either die or cross the separation fence and go to Egypt.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian office OCHA, said that most of the new arrivals in Rafah "are living in temporary buildings, tents, or in the open," and the city has now become a "pressure vessel of despair, and we fear what will happen after that."

Residents in the Gaza Strip have been living in difficult conditions since Oct. 7, after Israel declared a large-scale war in response to Hamas' unexpected attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the killing of about 1,200 Israelis.

Since then, the Israeli army has continued its air, land, and sea attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 27,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Enditem

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