War between Israel and Hamas: deadly attack hits area in southern Gaza where many are sheltering
When Samir Hassan and his surviving relatives fled their home in the city of Mughraqa in the central Gaza Strip weeks ago, they did so under intense Israeli airstrikes, which killed several relatives, including an uncle, and seriously injured his brother.
They settled in a tent in the nearby Nuseirat area, where tens of thousands of Palestinians had also fled, forced by Israel’s air and ground offensive, and sought shelter in crowded schools, dilapidated tents or even on the streets.
Now Mr Hassan’s family have been warned they will have to move again.
The Israeli army this week ordered more than 150,000 people to leave parts of central Gaza. “The area you are in is considered an area where deadly fighting is taking place,” he warned leaflets which were dropped over houses, shelters and encampments.
“God willing, this will be the last time we are displaced,” said Mr. Hassan, 22, a taxi driver. The family lost everything when it fled for the first time, he said.
Israel’s war against Hamas has forced many of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians to flee for their lives repeatedly, as airstrikes bomb their towns and cities and Israeli forces continue their ground invasion.
The area now under threat, about nine square kilometers, has six shelters housing about 61,000 displaced people, mainly from northern Gaza, according to the United Nations. This is in addition to the 90,000 original inhabitants of the area.
In its latest evacuation order, Israel ordered people to immediately move to shelters that, the UN says, can barely accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people already there.
About 1.9 million people in Gaza, or nearly 85 percent of the population, are estimated to be displaced, according to the U.N. Palestinian Relief Agency.
“Forced to move again,” said the the agency said on Thursday. “Israeli authorities’ evacuation order in central Gaza is causing continued forced displacement. More than 150,000 people – young children, women carrying babies, people with disabilities and the elderly – have nowhere to go.”
According to the organization, the only remaining hope for Gazans is a ceasefire.
Israel’s evacuation orders – which the United Nations has said pose the risk of forced displacement, which is a war crime – are sometimes contradictory and confusing. And even as Gazans once again make the painful decision to uproot their families, they are forced to make impossible choices, with no safe places to go.
The Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza have decimated large parts of the Palestinian enclave and its infrastructure, leaving millions hungry and exposed to the elements, creating a public health disaster in the making.
Israel has said it is addressing humanitarian concerns, including those of the United States. A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, said on social media that in an effort to help Gazans understand the evacuation guidelines, they had published maps divided into grids “to ensure your safety and security.”
But Israel has routinely used 2,000-pound bombs — among the largest and most destructive bombs supplied by the United States — in densely populated areas of southern Gaza, where civilians have been told to move for their safety, according to an analysis from the visual evidence of The New York Times.
At Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, a mother of five said she and 20 members of her extended family had arrived there the previous day. It is the fourth time that the family, including a ten-month-old baby, has been forced to flee since the start of the war.
“They threatened the whole block around us, even the new camp, even the market street – they threatened everything,” she said. “They dropped leaflets ordering us to leave within three days. So we had to come here.”
Living in a flimsy tent in the winter cold has made all her children sick, she said. Now they live on the cold sidewalk outside the hospital.
“We don’t have any mattresses,” she said. “We only have blankets. We either cover ourselves with it or sleep on it.”