This week, university student Marah Jamala (21 years old) received a recorded warning phone call from the Israeli army, stating that the neighborhood she lives with her family in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, would be unsafe due to fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas members.
The call asked her and her family to leave for another area, which the army said would be safer, according to what the newspaper reported.Wall Street Journal“.
Indeed, her family members quickly gathered their luggage on a donkey cart, in light of the severe fuel shortage in the Gaza Strip, and headed to the city of Rafah, located on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt.
Every day, the Israeli army asks Palestinian residents to leave new areas of Gaza, which are defined by a map of the areas (blocks), which divides the Strip into areas and neighborhoods, and urges them to seek shelter in other areas that it says will be safer.
This comes as Israeli leaders are under pressure from the United States and others to find ways to reduce civilian casualties.
The newspaper says that the success of the “blocks” system could determine the course of support for the war in Washington and other capitals, as Israel says that its war will be prolonged in order to eliminate the Hamas movement, which the United States and the European Union classify as a terrorist organization.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas after gunmen stormed the border fence and attacked towns in southern Israel on October 7. Israel says the attack killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages to Gaza, more than 100 of whom were later released.
Gaza health authorities say about 18,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, with thousands more missing.
The numbers of dead and injured no longer include numbers from the northern parts of the Strip, which are beyond the reach of ambulances and where hospitals have stopped working.
After weeks of fighting concentrated in the north, Israel launched its ground attack in the south by storming Khan Yunis. With fighting currently continuing along almost the entire Gaza Strip. International relief organizations say that this development has left the Strip’s 2.3 million residents with nowhere to go.
On Sunday, Reuters reported that Israeli tanks made their way into the center of Khan Yunis, in a major new incursion into the heart of the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, which houses hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled from other areas of the Strip.
Israel says it is spreading news of the new “blocks” system through phone calls, dropping leaflets from airplanes, social media, and radio and television broadcasts.
Since the launch of the system last week, Israel has issued evacuation notices for 28 percent of the total land area of the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations.
A message conveyed in Arabic through the Israeli army spokesman, Avichay Adraee, stated, “The map was published in order to help you understand and realize the directives issued and to move from specific locations precisely if necessary, in order to preserve your security and safety.”
But the Wall Street Journal believes that implementing the plan is fraught with challenges and risks, noting that recent days have witnessed the civilian sweep of the city of Rafah, where thousands of newly evacuated people sleep in the streets, crowd into already overcrowded schools, and set up camps in abandoned buildings. “This is beyond the ability of relief agencies to respond,” according to UN reports.
Israel and Egypt closed their borders with Gaza, while the Palestinians were left with no choice but to scramble from one place to another as the war continued.
The United Nations, Palestinian officials and witnesses in Gaza say the strikes hit at least one area designated as a safe haven, under the new “blocks” system.
A raid that took place in Rafah on December 6 resulted in the deaths of 22 people, according to Palestinian officials who held the Israeli army responsible for the attack. Two days earlier, the Israeli army ordered residents of Khan Yunis to head to the area.
In response to a question about the raid, the Israeli army said that it was “taking possible precautions to mitigate the damage to civilians,” according to what the newspaper reported.
The Wall Street Journal adds that Israeli military officials acknowledge that there is no completely safe place in Gaza, but they say that the designated areas are safer.
According to former and current American officials, the Israeli plan faces other challenges. They say that if evacuation zones are too large, the few remaining areas could be overwhelmed by waves of displaced civilians seeking refuge to escape.
On the other hand, Israeli officials believe that by giving civilians the opportunity to flee combat zones, they are sacrificing a major military advantage, as this allows Hamas members to move to areas in the south during their pursuit. The Israeli military said Thursday that Hamas fired rockets from Al-Mawasi, a largely empty area of the Gaza coast that Israel has designated for displaced civilians.
The newspaper says that the Israeli army is monitoring the efforts from a small control room in the Southern Command located near the city of Beersheba. It creates a digital map, showing the current estimated population in each area, through mobile phone signals.
The Biden administration spoke approvingly of the new “blocks” system, describing it as a sign that the Israelis are responding to calls to prevent civilian casualties. But some American officials also expressed concern that the plan is not working as intended.
US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said Thursday: “It remains necessary for Israel to give priority to protecting civilians. There is still a gap between (..) the intention to protect civilians and the actual results we see on the ground.”
It seems clear that Israeli evacuation orders covering areas in Khan Yunis, and areas north and east of the city that together are home to about 600,000 people, according to international relief officials, are burdening Gaza’s humanitarian aid system.
On Sunday, the Executive Council of the World Health Organization unanimously adopted a resolution calling for sending immediate aid to Gaza to confront the deteriorating health situation in the Palestinian Strip.
After the UN Security Council failed to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after the United States used its veto, the 34 member states of the organization’s Executive Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for “immediate and unhindered passage of humanitarian assistance” to the Gaza Strip.
The “block” system also faced a different kind of chaotic reality, as many Palestinians headed south instead of following the maps.
The newspaper says that the reason for this is simply because Gaza residents lack electricity and regular access to the Internet, which prevents many from seeing the maps published by the Israeli army, while the paper leaflets only include general instructions to leave and go to another area, without specification.
Residents of Gaza also expressed their confusion after Israel issued multiple evacuation orders for the Khan Yunis area, some of which required heading towards Rafah, while other orders requested heading towards other parts of Khan Yunis.
At a house in Khan Yunis that was destroyed by bombing during the night, relatives of the dead were searching through the rubble in a dazed state. They recovered the body of a middle-aged man wearing a yellow shirt from under the rubble.
Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in Khan Yunis, was crowded with the dead and wounded.
On Sunday, there was no room in the emergency department as people were carrying more wounded people wrapped in blankets and carpets. Muhammad Abu Shehab cried and swore to avenge his son, who he said was killed by an Israeli sniper, according to what Reuters reported.
The Israeli blockade led to a cut off of supplies, and the United Nations warned of the spread of hunger and disease on a large scale.
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2023-12-10 19:13:42
