Sharon Zhang
Truthout / July 29, 2024
The “safe zone” in Al-Mawasi, which Israeli forces have attacked many times, is completely full, aid groups say.
Only about an eighth of the area of Gaza is not currently under forced evacuation orders from Israel, the UN reports, in a clear show of the ethnic cleansing campaign Israel is carrying out as it relentlessly massacres Palestinians in the region.
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on Sunday that only 14 percent of Gaza isn’t currently under an evacuation order, with Israeli forces issuing new orders “every other day.” Nearly the entire population of Gaza has been forced to evacuate at least once, with people being forced to flee once a month on average since October, he said.
“Quite often, people have just a few hours to pack whatever they can and start all over again, mostly on foot or on a crowded donkey cart for those who can afford it,” said Lazzarini. “A man told our UNRWA teams recently that he was forced to flee twice within 10 hours.”
In the past week alone, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, nearly a tenth of Gaza’s population has been displaced, including nearly 30,000 people forced to flee just on Sunday.
“People continue to search for safety: the most precious, the most nonexistent,” Lazzarini continued, adding a call for a ceasefire. “The people of Gaza are not pinballs or chess pieces, they are people.”
Where Israel has issued evacuation orders, it has also said it is planning bombings or raids in those areas, attacks that often begin only hours after an order is given. In other words, Israel has designated 86 percent of Gaza as zones under attack — on top of the massacres it has also carried out in the areas it has designated as “safe.”
In recent weeks, these orders have intensified, with Israeli officials forcing hundreds of thousands to flee from the designated “safe zone” of Al-Mawasi and Khan Younis, where Israeli forces have slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians just over the past two weeks.
Nour Odeh, Palestinian political analyst and former spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, noted that the sheer proportion of Gaza that is being evacuated and attacked confirms that Israel’s siege of Gaza is an ethnic cleansing campaign.
“These are not ‘evacuation’ orders. They’re ethnic cleansing tactics,” Odeh wrote on social media.
It has been reported for months that there is nowhere safe to go for Palestinians in Gaza, with danger from Israel’s bombardments and famine and disease campaign lurking around every corner. This danger has only intensified as Israel has shrunk the area of Gaza that is not subject to evacuation, while escalating its horrific humanitarian aid blockade and destruction of the medical system.
One of the only places left that isn’t under evacuation, the “safe zone” in Al-Mawasi, is now completely full, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported last week. Before being designated as a “safe zone,” Al-Mawasi was already deemed unlivable, with the stretch of desert lacking basically any infrastructure. Indeed, conditions in Al-Mawasi are worse than elsewhere, with access to water and toilets severely limited, even when compared to the extremely low access available to Palestinians elsewhere in Gaza.
“In the so-called ‘humanitarian area’ in Al-Mawasi, there is no space even for a single tent due to the overwhelming number of people desperate for safety,” said the Red Crescent.
Even though Israeli officials have lured Palestinians into the area under the pretense that it is safe, the Israeli military has attacked civilian areas there at least 10 times and killed dozens taking shelter there since May.
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor
