United Nations: The people of Gaza have little space left to flee
Gemma Connell, who leads a United Nations humanitarian team, said yesterday (Monday) that many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip followed evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army and searched for safety in specific areas, only to find that they had only a small space left in the densely populated Strip, according to What was reported by Reuters.
Connell, who has been working in Gaza for several weeks, spoke of what she said was a “human chessboard” within which thousands of people were fleeing, who had already been displaced several times, and added that there was no guarantee that their next destination would be safe.
The United States, Israel’s strongest ally in its war against Hamas, has been pressuring the Israeli government for weeks to take further steps to reduce harm to civilians by identifying safe areas and opening humanitarian routes for people to flee.
“People were heading south with all their belongings in pickup trucks, trucks and cars, trying to find a safe place,” said Connell, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs team, who visited the Deir al-Balah neighborhood in the central Gaza Strip yesterday.
“I talked to a lot of people,” she added. “There is so little space left here in Rafah that people don’t know where they’re going, and it’s like people are being moved around a human chessboard because there’s an evacuation order somewhere.”
She continued: “People are fleeing from that area to another area. But they are not safe there.”
In response to a request for comment, an Israeli army spokesman said that the army had sought to evacuate civilians from combat zones but that Hamas was systematically trying to prevent these efforts. The spokesman added that the Palestinian movement uses civilians as human shields, which the movement denies.
“There is no safe place in Gaza”
Connell spoke about the death of a nine-year-old boy named Ahmed in Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where many of the wounded from the Israeli air strikes were taken last night. Connell spent about an hour and a half in this hospital.
She said: “He was not in an area where evacuation orders had been issued, but rather in an area that was supposed to be safe.” “There is no safe place in Gaza,” she said, adding that new air strikes occurred while she was in the hospital and that she personally witnessed new wounded being brought in.
It showed the text of a notice from the Israeli army urging residents of at least six neighborhoods in central Gaza to evacuate on Friday.
She says that the Israeli army will soon begin operations in their area and urges them to evacuate “temporarily and move to shelters” in Deir al-Balah.
An Israeli army spokesman told Reuters: “The IDF will act against Hamas wherever it is active, in full compliance with international law, distinguishing between terrorists and civilians, and taking all possible precautions to reduce harm to civilians.”
American officials have repeatedly said that they expect Israel to reduce its operations to a less intensive phase of more targeted and specific operations. However, Israeli operations intensified.
Christmas Eve proved to be one of the bloodiest nights in the 11-week war between Israel and Hamas, and Palestinian health officials in Gaza said that Israeli air strikes in central and southern Gaza killed more than 100 Palestinians, bringing the war death toll to nearly 20,700.
While the Palestinians mourn their deaths, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue the fight against Hamas fighters who launched a surprise cross-border attack on October 7, during which they killed 1,200 people and detained 240 others, according to what Israel says.
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2023-12-26 07:25:13
