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.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy