An evacuation order was issued Monday after rockets were fired into Israel.
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The Israeli army continues to bombard the Gaza Strip. Fighting continues in the north around Chadjaya and in the south in Rafah, while thousands of displaced people continue to flee eastern Rafah and Khan Younis. Around 250,000 people, according to the UN, are targeted by the evacuation order issued on Monday 1er July, after rocket fire towards Israel.
It is hot, entire families walk slowly in the dust, among the debris. Water and food are scarce. Nabil lives north of Rafah and Khan Younis and since Monday afternoon, he has seen an uninterrupted flow of displaced people arrive: “Residents who tried to rebuild their homes on the rubble and suddenly they receive leaflets: ‘Evacuate Khan Younis’. People have become living dead.”
The living dead are still under the bombs. According to several statements by Israeli officials, the war in Gaza must enter a new phase, with less intense and more targeted attacks. For Louise Wateridge, spokesperson for UNRWA, we are still far from that. She has been in the enclave for a week: “The bombing is, at the moment, extremely intense and the people who are subject to evacuation orders and these forced displacements are even more frightening. It’s very difficult to know where to go when there is fighting going on not far away. There is no safe destination.”
Even health facilities can be targets. The European Hospital in Khan Younis is not in the evacuation zone. And yet, patients and medical staff have decided to flee as a precaution while waiting for a new military operation that seems inevitable.
