An event is being held in Bradford this evening amid calls to "stand up for Rafah".

The protest, described as a "call to action", has been organised by Bradford Friends of Palestine.

Starting at The Range carpark on Thornton Road, the protest got underway from 5.30pm onwards.

Some 1.3 million Palestinians – more than half Gaza’s population – had sought refuge in Rafah, on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city, before Israel’s invasion.

About 110,000 people have now fled Rafah and food and fuel supplies in the area are critically low, a UN official said on Friday.

All crossings into southern Gaza remain closed, cutting off supplies and preventing medical evacuations and the movement of humanitarian staff, said Georgios Petropoulos, an official for the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs working in Rafah.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Demonstrators hold Palestinian flags as they celebrate after the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a Palestinian-drafted resolution to fly Palestine's flag at United Nations headquarters, during a protest against Jewish settlements in the

“We simply have no tents, we have no blankets, no bedding, none of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system,” Mr Petropoulos said.

UN officials warned that the lack of fuel is undermining medical facilities, water supplies and sewage systems across Gaza.

The World Food Programme will run out of food for distribution in southern Gaza by Saturday unless more aid arrives, according to Mr Petropoulos.

Heavy fighting was also under way in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have once again regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punishing assaults.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that a US threat to withhold some weapons would not deter Israel from expanding its offensive in Gaza.

A limited Israeli operation earlier this week captured the Gaza side of Rafah’s border crossing with Egypt, throwing humanitarian operations into crisis.

Israel says the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing – Gaza’s main cargo terminal – is open on its side, but the UN says it remains inaccessible on the Gaza side because of ongoing fighting.

Israeli troops are battling Palestinian militants in eastern Rafah, not far from the crossings. An Associated Press reporter in the city heard heavy artillery and gunfire throughout the night into Friday.

The military said in a statement that it had located several tunnels and eliminated militants “during close-quarters combat and with an aerial strike”.

Hamas’s military wing said it carried out a complex attack in which it struck a house where Israeli troops had taken up position, an armoured personnel carrier and soldiers operating on foot. There was no comment from the Israeli military.

It is not possible to independently confirm battlefield accounts from either side.

Hamas also said it launched a number of mortar rounds at the Kerem Shalom crossing, close to where Israeli troops are operating.

The military said it intercepted two launches. The crossing was initially closed after a Hamas rocket attack last weekend that killed four Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Rafah is the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza and key to its goal of dismantling the group’s military and governing capabilities and returning scores of hostages captured in Hamas’s October 7 attack that triggered the war.

But Hamas has repeatedly regrouped, even in the hardest-hit parts of Gaza.

Heavy battles erupted this week in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City in the northern part of the territory. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive, and Israel said late last year that it had mostly dismantled Hamas there.

The north remains largely isolated by Israeli troops, and the UN says the estimated 300,000 people there are experiencing “full-blown famine”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to proceed with the offensive with or without US arms, saying “we will fight with our fingernails” if needed in a defiant statement late on Thursday.

The Israeli military says it has what it needs for the missions it has planned, including in Rafah.

The death toll from the war in Gaza is more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and caused vast destruction to apartments, hospitals, mosques and schools across several cities.