Some 300,000 Palestinians in southern and northern Gaza were once again forced to flee. The United Nations said, as Israel issued new and expanded evacuation orders on Saturday. But many people don’t know how to find safe shelter in a war-torn place.
The expanded evacuation order applies to the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than a million Gazans have gathered after fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere over the past seven months. They are increasingly concerned that the Israeli military is preparing to launch an invasion of Rafah, something Israeli leaders have long promised, a prospect that international aid groups and many countries have condemned.
About 150,000 people have fled Rafah in the past six days, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that assists the Palestinians.
Mohammad al-Masri, 31, said: “It was a difficult situation – the number of displaced people was very high and none of them knew where to go, but they left and tried to go as far as possible.” . The old accountant is sheltering with his family in a tent in Rafah. “Fear, confusion, oppression, anxiety are eating away at people.”
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, criticized the expanded evacuation order on Saturday on social networkssaying, “The order to evacuate civilians trapped in Rafah to unsafe areas is unacceptable.”
Israel took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Monday in what it called a “limited operation”, and increased bombardment and fighting continued in and around town since then.
The Israeli military said it was carrying out “precision operations in specific areas east of Rafah” targeting Hamas. However, according to local health officials, the majority of the more than 34,000 Palestinians reported killed in Gaza were women and children. Health officials say dozens of people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Rafah since Monday.
Most of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been forced from their homes, often multiple times throughout the war, with many now living in tents, ramshackle classrooms or overcrowded apartments. casting.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said in a statement that it “urged people from other areas east of Rafah to temporarily evacuate to the expanded humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi,” an area on the outskirts of Rafah. sea north of Rafah.
“So far, about 300,000 Gazans have moved to the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi,” the army added.
Although Israel describes Al-Mawasi as a humanitarian zone, the United Nations stresses that the area is neither safe nor equipped to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been displaced by the war.
“Everywhere you look now is in the West #Rafah This morning, families are packing their belongings,” Louise Wateridge, UNRWA spokeswoman, wrote on social media on Saturday. “The streets are significantly emptier.”
Even as Israeli forces bombarded Rafah, in recent weeks they have repeatedly returned to areas of northern Gaza, including the town of Beit Hanoun and the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, to respond. with renewed rebel activity. On Saturday, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of the northern city of Jabaliya ahead of a planned operation.
Israel’s ground invasion began in late October in northern Gaza, in response to October 7 attacks led by Hamas in southern Israel. Much of the area has been devastated by months of Israeli airstrikes and shelling, leaving behind a lawless wasteland dominated by street gangs. The Israeli army said it had killed many key Hamas commanders in the area and routed the group’s fighters.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed Friday in northern Gaza by an explosive device, the Israeli military said. On Saturday, it said in a statement that Hamas was trying to “regroup its infrastructure and terrorist activities” around Jabaliya, which the Israeli military considers a stronghold and base for Hamas’s activities.
Fatma Edaama, 36, a Jabaliya resident, said Saturday that she hoped the latest fighting would be limited enough to allow her family to stay. “Our lives ended in 2006,” she said, when Hamas won legislative elections in Palestine, prompting Israel to begin tightening restrictions on Gaza, adding, “ There is no safe place for us to go.”
Israeli military analysts call the apparent rise of Hamas in northern Gaza a result of Israel’s failure to establish any form of alternative government there, leaving a vacuum that was an ideal breeding ground. thought of an uprising. Michael Milshtein, a former senior Israeli intelligence official, said that although Israeli forces swept through the areas, when they withdrew, Hamas reasserted its control, whether directly or through co-operatives. bright.
“Hamas still rules,” Mr. Milshtein said. “Their forces have been severely damaged but they are still capable. There is still no alternative for them in Gaza and every alternative we have tried to establish has failed.”
Earlier in the week, Razan al-Sa’eedi, an 18-year-old university student studying accounting, prepared to leave with his family for UNRWA campus in Rafah, where they had lived for months. But as they waited for the driver they had arranged to take them to another city, they learned that his vehicle – a tractor pulling a large vehicle – had been hit by an Israeli missile, Ms. al-Sa’eedi said. She said a man had been killed.
In a panic, they called local emergency responders, who told them there was no help. Instead, Ms. al-Sa’eedi said, family members left most of their belongings behind and walked, each carrying only a backpack.
As they waited for Ms. al-Sa’eedi’s father and brother outside the school gate, they saw them running with blood streaks on their faces.
“We saw a drone shooting around them,” she said. “We grabbed our backpacks and ran away from that dangerous area.”
As they fled, Ms. al-Sa’eedi said, they occasionally stopped to try to hail passing taxis, but time and time again they found them full.
After a nearly two-day trek that included hours of walking and eventually a taxi ride, she said, they arrived at Al Aqsa University, in the southern city of Khan Younis. Inside a university building, the walls of classrooms are scrawled with messages.
One message said: “This floor is booked,” she said, while another read: “Please do not take any rooms or we will kick you out.”
Only a small cabinet used to store the generator was empty. That will have to do.
“We only had three blankets to use as curtains,” Ms. al-Sa’eedi said. “We have no other choice for this small room.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad Contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel.
