Israel calls on famine-stricken Gaza City residents to move to safe zone as it expands operations

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s army called Saturday on Palestinians in Gaza City to move to a humanitarian area it designated in the south as it expanded its operations in preparation for seizing the famine-stricken city. including targeting high-rise buildings.

Parts of the city, home to nearly 1 million people, are already considered “red zones,” where evacuation orders have been issued ahead of the expected offensive.

Aid groups have repeatedly warned that a large-scale evacuation of Gaza City would exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation, after the world’s leading authority on food crises declared the city to be gripped by famine, Palestinians have been uprooted and displaced multiple times during the nearly two-year-long war, with many being too weak to move and having nowhere to go.

Israeli army tells residents to move to a ‘humanitarian zone’

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in X that the army declared Muwasi — a makeshift tent camp in southern Gaza Strip — a humanitarian area and urged everyone in the city, which it called a Hamas stronghold and specified as a combat zone, to leave. The army said they could travel in cars down a designated road without being searched.

The military, in a statement, provided a map showing the area in Khan Younis that the humanitarian area encompasses, which includes the block where Nasser Hospital is located. The area around the hospital has been considered a red zone, though not the medical facility itself. Last week, Israel struck the hospital, killing 22 people, including Mariam Dagga, who worked for The Associated Press and other media outlets. The hospital was not under evacuation.

The designated safe zone would include field hospitals, water pipelines, food and tents, and relief efforts “will continue on an ongoing basis in cooperation with the U.N. and international organizations,” the statement said.

The declaration of a so-called “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza was done by the Israeli authorities unilaterally, and the U.N. and the wider humanitarian community are not part of that designation, said Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israeli forces have struck such humanitarian areas throughout the war, including Muwasi, which they previously declared a safe zone, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Israel on Saturday issued warnings for two high-rises in Gaza City and the tents around them, saying Hamas had infrastructure inside or near them. It comes a day after after Israel struck another high-rise building in Gaza City, saying Hamas used it for surveillance, without providing evidence.

Despite Israel’s warnings many Palestinians in Gaza City say they won’t leave. “They only order us to leave from one town to another? What are we going to do with our children? Those who have an ill person, or an elderly or a wounded, where are we going to take them?” said a woman who identified herself as Um Haitham.