While Israel issues new forced displacement orders through the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians say that they are crushed by exhaustion and despair to the prospect of fleeing again.
Many are packing some personal effects and embarking on new shelters despite the fact that there are no safe spaces in the enclave torn by the war. Some say they just can’t stand moving.
When he was ordered to leave Jabalia in the north of Gaza, Ihab Suliman and his family could not have food and covers before heading south on March 19. It was their eighth time to run away in the last 18 months of war.
“There is no more taste for life,” said Suliman, a former university professor. “Life and death have become one and the same thing for us.”
Suliman is one of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled temporary shelters since Israel broke a two-month ceasefire on March 18 with a renewed bombardment and ground assaults.
Incorporated by the notion of starting again, some Palestinians ignore the last movement orders – even if it means risking their lives.
“After a year and a half of war that has exhausted everyone, the children and their parents, too, are physically and mentally exhausted,” said Rosalia Bollen, specialist in UNICEF communication.
During the last month, Israel blocked all the food, fuel and supplies of the entry to Gaza, and the aid groups say that there are no more tents or other shelter supplies to help the newly moved.
Tuesday, the World Food Program closed all its bakeries in Gaza, on which hundreds of thousands count for bread because it was short of flour.
Israel’s forced displacement commands cover large expanses of the strip, including many districts of Gaza City and Towns to the north, parts of the southern city of Khan Younis, and almost the entire southern city of Rafah and its surroundings.
