Only 14 pct of Gaza not under evacuation orders

GAZA STRIP

Palestinians fled the two refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip on Monday after the Israeli army issued new evacuation orders, with The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees saying that 86 percent of Gaza is currently under such orders.

“Currently, only 14 percent of areas in Gaza are not under the evacuation orders. Every other day, the Israeli Authorities issue these orders forcing people to flee, creating havoc and panic,” UNRWA head Phillipe Lazzarini wrote on X.

“Quite often, people have just a few hours to pack whatever they can and start all over again, mostly on foot or on a crowded donkey cart for those who can afford it.”

“The people of Gaza are not pinballs or chess pieces, they are people,” he concluded.

The Israeli army intensified on Monday its artillery bombardment across various areas in the Gaza Strip.

Witnesses reported to the media that the Israeli forces continued their fifth consecutive day of incursions into the southwestern outskirts of Gaza City.

The Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, said: “Israeli occupation forces and their vehicles remain present in the Tel al-Hawa area, specifically near the Jordanian Hospital. They continue to burn homes, abduct civilians, and carry out killings.”

Meanwhile, the municipality of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip condemned the Israeli army’s bombing of a drinking water reservoir in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood as a grave violation of humanitarian norms.

“The Israeli soldiers’ detonation of the main water reservoir in Tal al-Sultan is a crime against humanity and perpetuates a policy of collective punishment,” Ahmed Soufi, the mayor of Rafah, said in a statement.

The incident has raised alarm about the worsening water crisis in the area.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli army acknowledged that their soldiers were responsible for the bombing of the water reservoir in the region.

In recent days, activists circulated a video on social media showing an Israeli soldier planting an explosive device at the main water reservoir in Tal al-Sultan, followed by the detonation.

Amid humanitarian crisis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the evacuation of 150 sick and wounded Palestinian children from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates for treatment