Around 75,000 people have been left homeless in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli army intensified its attacks on the capital ten days ago, the Palestinian enclave's Civil Defense reported on Tuesday.
“More than 75,000 people have been displaced from destroyed buildings in the city itself and on the outskirts of Gaza City,” Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told EFE.
In addition, the organization estimates that 150,000 people have moved south of the enclave since Israel approved its plan to take the city, which has been carried out first on the outskirts of the city and since Tuesday with the start of a ground offensive in the center of the city itself.
It is estimated that around 1 million people lived in Gaza City when Israel gave the green light to its invasion plan in mid-August. Tens of thousands have since moved south, with figures varying from source to source and the Israeli military putting them at 350,000.
The mass exodus is generating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Few Gaza City residents can afford to travel south with transportation and the knowledge that they will have at least a place to stay, due to the high economic cost. Sources cited by international agencies claim that it costs $2,000 to rent a van and buy a tent, not including other extra expenses such as a bathroom or land rental.
"We are preparing for a second painful journey south. I need to rent a truck to evacuate my family of six and our belongings. They've asked me for $1,000, and we have to wait several days to get an appointment," a Palestinian father from the Gaza capital, who prefers not to reveal his identity, told EFE.
Mursad, a 45-year-old resident of Gaza City, described her situation: “I was actually displaced from Shuja’iyya and then, of course, in a tent… not even a tent, but we put up some tarps with a few blankets. With all the bombing and evacuations, there was no way we could stay anymore.”
Transporters report overwhelming demand. Ali Said al-Quran, one of them, said, “By God, my phone never stops ringing, everyone wants to get out. The road is unbearable.” He explained that the main obstacles are fuel, whose price has risen from 100 to 150 shekels, and that “they go out trusting in God. They don’t have a clear goal.”
The situation is worsening due to the nutritional crisis. More than 10,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition in Gaza City, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported Tuesday.
“The massive forced displacement of families from Gaza City is a deadly threat to the most vulnerable,” said Tess Ingram, UNICEF spokesperson in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.
UNICEF estimates that 26,000 children across the Gaza Strip currently require treatment for acute malnutrition, including more than 10,000 in Gaza City alone. In August, more than one in eight children examined in Gaza was suffering from acute malnutrition, “the highest level ever recorded.” In Gaza City, that figure was one in five.
Nutrition centers in Gaza City have been “forced to close this week due to evacuation orders and the military escalation,” Ingram added.
From the IDF command bunker in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted Israel's efforts to protect civilians:"Our forces are operating in Gaza City with the goal, of course, of defeating the enemy, while also working to evacuate the civilian population."
The nearly two-year Israeli military campaign against Hamas has killed more than 64,000 people in Gaza, according to local authorities. It was triggered by the militant group's attack on Israel in October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
The ground offensive in the city comes as a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (Israel) concluded Tuesday that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
Displaced Palestinians in central Gaza said Tuesday that the UN investigation's findings were overdue."The United Nations should have reached such conclusions a long time ago because Israel has been committing mass massacres against the Palestinian people on a daily basis," Fadel al-Dibs, a displaced Palestinian from Jabalia, told Reuters.
“scandalous” and “false” report, saying it had been drafted by “Hamas intermediaries.”
