Central Gaza Strip — Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate parts of central Gaza, its latest directive, as it pushes more of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million residents into a smaller area while expanding its bombings on the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army on Friday ordered families to flee for their “safety” to shelters in Deir el-Balah, southern Gaza, from Bureij and the Nuseirat areas of central Gaza.
The announcement angered the region’s weary and exhausted residents, many of whom have already been displaced several times since October 7.
Scenes of mass displacement once again invaded Salah al-Din Street, connected to the entrance to the Bureij refugee camp.
Salah al-Din, a road that runs the length of Gaza, has been nicknamed “death row” by many in the strip. In previous evacuations, Palestinians fleeing parts of northern Gaza have been arrested, shot and even killed – although this route has been declared safe by the Israeli military.
On Friday, hundreds of people carrying what remained of their personal belongings took to the street on foot. Others loaded pickup trucks and donkey carts with mattresses, blankets, plastic chairs and whatever else they could salvage.
Some could barely move after suffering injuries from previous attacks, but had no choice but to escape once again.
This is the case of Walaa al-Nuzeini, who fled Bureij in a wheelchair and for the third time since the start of the assault.
Al-Nuzeini was living in the Shujayea neighborhood of Gaza City when an Israeli airstrike targeted his house on November 7.
“I lost my daughter, she died in my arms,” al-Nuzeini told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“We were under the rubble for three hours before they took us out,” she said, adding that the entire area is now “destroyed.”
Al-Nuzeini was seriously injured. She suffered injuries to her leg and said the nerve was affected, causing her “extreme pain”. She was taken to al-Shifa Hospital for treatment, but three days later Israeli soldiers attacked the facility, Gaza’s largest hospital, which is now no longer functioning.
“We ran away, scared, and had to walk to Nuseirat,” she recalls.
At the time, Israeli soldiers ordered doctors, patients and displaced people from the hospital to evacuate the medical complex, forcing some to leave at gunpoint, according to testimony from doctors and officials Palestinians.
More than 7,000 people, including critical patients and newborns, were sheltering in al-Shifa hospital.
The humanitarian situation has become “very difficult,” al-Nuzeini said. She is now heading to Khan Younis, where her other children have set up a tent.
” This is not a life. We have no water, no food, no freedom of movement.
“We are exhausted”
Two months ago, the Israeli army called on Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee to the south, but it continued to target and bomb civilians even there. Khan Younis is now at the center of Israeli attacks.
“No place is safe,” Salem al-Sheikh told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The elderly man said he was forcibly moved from his home in the Nassr neighborhood in western Gaza City.
“They (the Israeli army) told us to leave, so I fled to al-Shifa hospital, where I stayed for a month and a half. I then left for Nuseirat,” al-Sheikh said.
He was among thousands of people who sought shelter at al-Shifa hospital before it was attacked by Israeli forces.
Today, for the third time, he is displaced from Nuseirat.
The latest call for evacuation comes as Israeli ground troops continue to battle Palestinian fighters in southern and central Gaza.
In the last 48 hours alone, at least 390 people were killed as the enclave was plunged into digital darkness for the sixth time due to a communications outage, Gaza’s health ministry said .
The United Nations says nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced, more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip’s pre-war population.
Many are crowded into Rafah governorate in southern Gaza, where al-Sheikh is heading.
The Health Ministry has warned that diseases are proliferating there due to the lack of essential supplies, medicines, clean water and fuel.
Meanwhile, UN-run schools have become overcrowded shelters for thousands of displaced Palestinians.
“It has been extremely difficult,” al-Sheikh said. “We walked on foot from al-Shifa… we passed Israeli army tanks until we came to a school,” he said, referring to his second time traveling.
But the schools “are full,” he said. “There is no space.”
Many believe that the UN designation of these buildings will protect them from constant Israeli bombardment.
However, several schools were targeted or damaged following Israeli air raids nearby. According to the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), some 1.4 million Palestinians are stuck in overcrowded and unprotected shelters run by the agency and are now uninhabitable. Poor conditions in makeshift housing have already caused an outbreak of scabies and smallpox, among other infections.
Al-Sheikh said he just wanted to go home.
“We are exhausted from going from one place to another. They have to let us go home.
Around 60 percent of all residential units in the Gaza Strip were damaged, or 254,000 homes. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the latest offensive, including at least 8,000 children.
Rights groups have warned of the consequences of mass displacement, with organizations like Human Rights Watch calling them a “war crime.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must “stop committing crimes and killing the children of the people,” al-Sheikh said. “He needs to stop destroying homes over people’s heads.”
