One million people, trapped in the siege of Gaza. “There is no safe place, we have nowhere to go”

The Red Cross warned on Saturday against a massive evacuation of the population in the city of Gaza, at a time when Israel taught the siege on urban agglomeration for a major offensive against the Palestinian group Hamas, AFP reports.

“It is impossible for the massive evacuation of the city of Gaza to be carried out in a safe and worthy way,” said the chairman of the International Committee of the Red Cross (CICR), Mirjana Spoljaric. Such a plan is “not only unattainable, but also incomprehensible”, if Israel intends to respect the principles of international humanitarian law, she estimated.

Thousands of inhabitants have already fled the city, in the north of the territory, where almost one million people live according to UN estimates. After almost 23 months from the beginning of the war that devastated the Gaza Strip, the evacuation of the city of Gaza “would lead to a massive population relocation that no area in the Gaza strip would be able to absorb,” warned Mirjana Spoljaric.

Despite the growing pressures, both in strings and in Israel, to put an end to the war, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu states that he wants to continue the offensive in the Gaza and Army Failure to prepare a generalized assault on the city of Gaza.

From the point of view of Netanyahu and his far -right allies, it is about finishing with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist Movement that triggered the war on October 7, 2023, and to bring home the old men that day.

Operations in intensification on the outskirts of town

For the Israeli army, which officially declared the city of Gaza on Friday, “battle area”, in a prelude to its offensive, the evacuation of the urban agglomeration is “inevitable”. On the ground, Israeli military operations have intensified even more on Saturday, on the outskirts of Gaza.

A journalist who collaborates with AFP and who is at the northern Lyziera of Gaza and Jabalia said that it is currently at the limit of the area whose evacuation was ordered by the army. Bombardments are approaching and now shit and explosions can be heard, he added.

The civil defense in the Gaza Strip, a first aid organization operating under the Hamas authority after the group took over in this territory in 2007, spoke about intense Israeli strokes on Sabra and Zeitun neighborhoods and a escalation in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.

“The bombings this night were unknown, they did not stop a second, and I could not sleep,” said Abu Mohammad Kishko, contacted by telephone while in the Zeitun neighborhood. “We cannot even breathe normally because of the fumigans, we suffocate (…) We are trapped in our homes,” added this 42 -year -old man who, like other inhabitants, has not respected the Israeli evacuation order because “there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip and we have nowhere to go.”

“All night, bombings and explosions did not stop and my children could not sleep,” said telephone Mariam Yasin, who are in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. “My husband left a few days ago to look for a place for us, but he didn't find anything and we don't know what to do,” the 38 -year -old added. “In Gaza, we live in a daily tragedy and it is as if the world does not see us and does not hear us,” she said.

Contacted by AFP on his military operations, the Israeli army, whose soldiers operate in the Zeitun neighborhood for several days, replied that two of his soldiers were injured by an explosive device in the north of the Gaza strip.

“Almost one million people living in the Gaza governor have no place to go, not even the means to move,” said Philippe Lazzarini on Friday, the head of the UN Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). “If the military operation is carried out in the middle of the population (…) it will be a total disaster,” he said.