The Israeli army issued new evacuation orders today, Sunday, for residents of the Gaza Strip who are inside the "safe humanitarian zone" in the center of the Strip, to expand its military operations in that area.
The army said in a statement: "To all residents and displaced persons present in the Deir al-Balah neighborhood in Block 128 in the area marked on the map, the IDF will operate forcefully against Hamas and the terrorist organizations in your area. For your safety, evacuate immediately to the west. The area in which you are located is considered a dangerous combat zone."
Looking at the map published by the Israeli army, it becomes clear that the area whose residents are being asked to evacuate is within the safe humanitarian zone that the army defined at the beginning of the war, which it continued to gradually reduce, and even carried out raids inside it that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of displaced citizens.
Our correspondent in Gaza, Mustafa Al-Bayan, explained the place that the army demanded to be evacuated: “From the main Deir al-Balah intersection in the south to the street leading to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the north, the designated area is the areas across the borders of the square, i.e. adjacent to Salah al-Din, without going deeper towards the west according to the mark specified on the map.”
It is worth noting that the Israeli army has been issuing evacuation orders in southern Gaza at an unprecedented rate, and over the past month these orders have led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the already crowded camps.
The evacuations are squeezing Palestinians into what the Israeli military calls a smaller "humanitarian zone" along the southern coast of the Strip, and even before the latest orders, the camps were overcrowded and lacking food, water and medical supplies.
The United Nations said eviction orders were issued almost every other day in August alone, displacing some 250,000 people.
The United Nations also indicates that at least 84% of the population of the Gaza Strip is now within the evacuation zone, and the United Nations also estimates that 90% of Gaza's 2.1 million people were displaced during the war.