Al-Mawasi, Rafah
Al-Mawasi is a fertile area for agriculture in the Gaza Strip. It is along the coast and has many sand dunes. Al-Mawasi is fourteen kilometers long and one kilometer wide, making up about 3% of the Gaza Strip. It is a Palestinian Bedouin town and prior to the 2005 unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, it was a Palestinian enclave within the Israeli settlements of Gush Katif. Al-Mawasi had a population of 1,409 in the middle of 2006. Prior to the Gaza war, al-Mawasi had a population of 9,000. It has a number of buildings with a maximum of 100 structures.
Region
The region's name derived from a traditional form of Palestinian dune agriculture, mawāṣī. Al-Mawasi is known as the "Basket of Food" because of its fertile soil, underground water, and agricultural conditions.History
Gaza war (2023-present)
Designation as safe zone
In December 2023, during the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces had designated Al-Mawasi as one of the only safe areas in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of people had fled there, and found only a barren strip of land with no basic resources such as food, water, or sanitation. In February 2024, as the IDF announced plans to expand operations into Rafah where hundreds of thousands had come to as a last refuge, Israeli authorities called Al-Mawasi a "safer zone". In an interview with Channel 4 News, Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levi, when pressed to confirm if civilians displaced northwards once more would be safe from further bombardment, stated that "it will not be safe" until Gaza was free from Hamas.By late-August 2024, the United Nations estimated there were between 30,000 and 34,000 people per square kilometre in Al-Mawasi. Food and water grew scarce as the area became increasingly overcrowded.