Rafah

31°16′21″N 34°15′31″E / 31.27250°N 34.25861°E / 31.27250; 34.25861

Rafah (Arabic: رفح Rafaḥ [rafaħ]) is a largely destroyed and depopulated city in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestine, that served as the capital of the Rafah Governorate. It is located 30 kilometers (19 mi) south-west of Gaza City. In 2017, Rafah had a population of 171,889. Due to the Gaza war, about 1.4 million people from Gaza City and Khan Yunis, about 70% of Gaza's population, were displaced to Rafah, as of February 2024. By April 2025, most of the city was destroyed by means of systematic razing by the Israeli military and the remains fell under Israeli control.

After the 1948 Palestine war, Egypt governed the area and refugee camps for displaced Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what became Israel were established. During the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) killed 111 Palestinians, including 103 refugees in the Rafah refugee camp, during the 1956 Rafah massacre. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli forces re-occupied the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip after capturing them from Egypt. In the same year, IDF troops bulldozed and demolished 144 houses in the Rafah refugee camp, killing 23 Palestinians.

When Israel fully withdrew from the Sinai in 1982, Rafah was split into a Gazan part and an Egyptian part, dividing families, separated by barbed-wire barriers. Then, since 2000, the core of the city was destroyed by Israel, and since the 2010s also by Egypt, in order to create a large buffer zone.

Rafah is the site of the Rafah Border Crossing, the sole crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Gaza's only airport, Yasser Arafat International Airport, was located just south of the city. The airport operated from 1998 to 2001, when it was bombed and bulldozed by the IDF.