Around 300,000 Palestinians from southern and northern Gaza are once again forced to flee, the United Nations says, as Israel issued new, expanded evacuation orders on Saturday. But many do not know where to find safe shelter in a place devastated by war.
The expanded evacuation orders apply to the town of Rafah, at the southern end of Gaza, where more than a million Gazans have gathered after fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere over the past seven months. They have heightened fears that the Israeli military will carry out an invasion of Rafah, something Israeli leaders have long promised, a prospect that international humanitarian groups and many countries have condemned.
Some 150,000 people have already fled Rafah over the past six days, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that helps the Palestinians.
“It’s a very difficult situation: the number of displaced people is very high, and none of them know where to go, but they are leaving and trying to get as far away as possible,” said Mohammad al-Masri, 31 years. old accountant who is sheltering with his family in a tent in Rafah. “Fear, confusion, oppression and anxiety are eating away at people. »
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, criticized the expanded evacuation order on Saturday. on social networksstating: “Orders to evacuate civilians stuck in Rafah to dangerous areas are 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 since then bombing and fighting have intensified in and around the town .
The Israeli military said it was carrying out “precise operations in specific areas of eastern Rafah” targeting Hamas. But the majority of the more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children, according to local health authorities. Dozens of people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Rafah since Monday, according to health authorities.
Most of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been forced to leave their homes, often repeatedly during the war, and many now live in dilapidated tents, classrooms or apartments. overcrowded.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said in a statement that it “called on the population of additional areas of eastern Rafah to temporarily evacuate to the expanded humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi,” a coastal area north of Rafah .
“So far,” the army added, “around 300,000 Gazans have moved to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.”
Although Israel has designated Al-Mawasi a humanitarian zone, the United Nations has stressed that the area is neither safe nor equipped to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already displaced by the war.
“Everywhere you look now to the west #Rafah This morning, families are packing their bags,” Louise Wateridge, UNRWA spokesperson, wrote on social media on Saturday. “The streets are much emptier. »
Even as Israeli forces bombarded Rafah, they have also repeatedly returned in recent weeks to areas of northern Gaza, including the town of Beit Hanoun and the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, to deal with the resurgence. militant activities. On Saturday, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of the northern town of Jabaliya ahead of a planned operation.
The Israeli ground invasion began in late October in northern Gaza, in response to attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel. Large swaths of the area have been devastated by months of Israeli airstrikes and bombardments, leaving a lawless wasteland dominated by street gangs. The Israeli military said it had killed many key Hamas commanders in the region while driving out the group’s fighters.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed Friday in northern Gaza by an explosive device, the army said. On Saturday, he said in a statement that Hamas was trying to “congregate its infrastructure and terrorist operatives” around Jabaliya, which the Israeli military considers a Hamas stronghold and base of operations.
Jabaliya resident Fatma Edaama, 36, said Saturday she hoped the latest fighting would be limited enough to allow her family to stay. “Our lives already ended in 2006,” when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, leading Israel to begin tightening restrictions on Gaza, she said, adding: “We have no safe place to go. »
Israeli military analysts have called Hamas’ apparent resurgence in northern Gaza a result of Israel’s failure to establish an alternative form of government there, leaving behind a vacuum that provides ideal ground for an insurgency. Even as Israeli forces sweep through areas, when they inevitably retreat, Hamas reasserts its control, whether directly or through its allies, said Michael Milshtein, a former senior Israeli intelligence official.
“Hamas still rules,” Mr. Milshtein said. “Their forces have been badly damaged, but they still have capabilities. There is still no alternative in Gaza, and all the alternatives we have tried to put in place have failed.”
Earlier in the week, Razan al-Sa’eedi, an 18-year-old university student studying accounting, was preparing with her family to leave the UNRWA school in Rafah where they had been living for months. But as they waited for the driver they had planned to transport them to another town, they learned that his vehicle – a tractor pulling a large cart – had been hit by an Israeli missile, Ms al-Sa’ said eedi. A man was killed, she said.
Panicked, they called local emergency services, who told them no help was available. Instead, Ms. al-Sa’eedi said, the family members left most of their belongings behind and set off on foot, each carrying only a backpack.
As they waited outside the school entrance for Ms. al Sa’eedi’s father and brother, they saw them running with blood on their faces.
“We saw a drone shooting around them,” she said. “We held our backpacks and ran away from this entire dangerous area.”
As they fled, Ms. al-Sa’eedi said, they stopped from time to time to try to stop passing taxis, but each time they found them full.
After nearly two days of walking that involved hours of walking and then – finally – a taxi ride, she said, they arrived at Al Aqsa University in the southern city of Khan Younis. Inside a university building, classroom walls were scrawled with messages.
One message read: “This floor is booked,” she said, while another said: “Please don’t take any rooms or we will evict you.”
Only a small cupboard formerly used to store generators was empty. That should be enough.
“We only have three blankets to use as curtains,” Ms. al-Sa’eedi said. “We have no alternative to this small room.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel.
