Limited Options: Palestinians Struggle as Israel Orders Mass Evacuations from Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel has renewed its demands for mass evacuations from the southern town of Khan Younis. The military has widened its ground offensive and has bombarded targets across the Gaza Strip.

This has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with a deadly choice – stay in the path of Israeli forces or flee and cram into smaller areas of the Gaza Strip, with no guarantee of safety. Aid workers have warned that this mass movement will only worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis in the territory.

Thomas White, the Gaza chief of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, shared his concern, stating, “Another wave of displacement is underway, and the humanitarian situation worsens by the hour.”

Israel’s goal is to eliminate Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whose Oct. 7 attack into Israel triggered the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades. The war has already killed thousands of Palestinians and displaced over three-fourths of the territory’s population of 2.3 million people.

The mounting toll is likely to increase international pressure to return to the negotiating table and could render larger parts of the isolated territory uninhabitable.

Residents are fleeing for their lives, transforming much of the north, including large areas in Gaza City, into a rubble-filled wasteland.

Now around 2 million people — most of the territory’s population — are crowded into the 230 square kilometers (90 square miles) that make up south and central Gaza, where Israel’s ground offensive is expanding. Their only escape is to other parts of that area, as both Israel and neighboring Egypt have refused to accept any refugees.

Fighting In Central Gaza

Residents said Monday they heard airstrikes and explosions in and around Khan Younis overnight after the military dropped leaflets warning people to relocate farther south toward the border with Egypt.

Israel has ordered mass evacuations from an area hosting tens of thousands displaced from other parts of Gaza. Large areas east of Khan Younis have also been ordered to evacuate. It said 21 shelters housing 50,000 people were in the evacuation zone.

The military warned civilians Monday to avoid the main north-south highway between Khan Younis and the central town of Deir al-Balah,

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