Palestinians flee Gaza battles on anniversary of 1948 'Nakba'

Tens of thousands of civilians fled heavy fighting in Gaza as Palestinians on Wednesday marked 76 years since their mass displacement during Israel's wartime creation which they call the Nakba or "catastrophe".

Israeli forces have bombed around Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, but clashes have also flared again in northern and central areas which Israeli troops first entered months ago.

The upsurge in urban combat in besieged Gaza has fuelled US warnings that Israel risks being bogged down in a counter-insurgency operation for years as guerrilla fighters stage hit-and-run attacks.

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US President Joe Biden has threatened to withhold some arms deliveries over Netanyahu's insistence on attacking Rafah, the last Gaza city so far spared a ground invasion, which is packed with civilians.

But Biden's administration has also stressed it will continue to support Israel's security and informed Congress on Tuesday of a new $1 billion weapons package for Israel, official sources told AFP.

The European Union urged Israel to end its military operation in Rafah "immediately", warning that failure to do so would "inevitably put a heavy strain" on ties with the bloc, which is Israel's biggest trade partner and the main aid donor for the Palestinian territories.

UN agencies warn that the latest fighting has newly displaced nearly one quarter of the Gaza Strip's population this month -- including about 450,000 people from Rafah and 100,000 from northern Gaza.

The sight of desperate families carrying their scant belongings through the ruins of war-scarred cities has evoked for many the events of 1948, when around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes.

"Your Independence Day is our catastrophe," protesters chanted in Israel on the eve of Nakba Day at a rally joined by many Arab-Israelis, descendants of Palestinians who stayed on their land and now live as a minority in Israel.

The decades-long conflict exploded into the Gaza war after Hamas launched their attack on Israel on October 7, sparking a military response that has devastated the coastal territory.

Hamas declared in a Nakba Day statement that "the ongoing suffering of millions of refugees inside Palestine and in the diaspora is directly attributed to the Zionist occupation".

The group said that "their legitimate right to return to their homes from which they were displaced cannot be compromised or relinquished".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring home the hostages that Hamas are still holding.

An ardent supporter of Israel, Biden has clashed with Netanyahu as a wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests have heightened election-year political pressure on the Democratic president.

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