The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza said on Saturday that an Israeli army evacuation order for residents of the central Gaza Strip would move them to areas where airstrikes are taking place.
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In posts on its Arabic-language networks on Friday, the Israeli army ordered residents of the Bureij refugee camp and surrounding areas to “leave immediately for their own safety” and head to a deemed safe area in Deir el-Balah, seven kilometers further south embark.
“The Israeli army is simply ordering people to move to areas where airstrikes are taking place. “No place is safe, there is nowhere to go,” UNRWA Gaza director Thomas White responded to X.
“The people of Gaza are people. These are not pieces on a chessboard – many have already been moved multiple times,” he added.
Unrwa said the latest evacuation order affected “more than 150,000 people.”
“In order to expand ongoing military operations, Israeli authorities have also issued evacuation orders for residents of the central Gaza Strip and ordered them to move to areas where airstrikes are taking place,” the agency wrote on its X account. “People have nowhere to go.” No place is safe.”
According to witnesses, thousands of Palestinians fled the central Gaza Strip to the south on Friday following the Israeli army's latest evacuation order.
According to the United Nations, 1.9 million residents, or 85% of Gaza's population, have been displaced since the war began.
The trigger was the bloody attack by Palestinian Hamas commandos on Israeli soil on October 7th, in which, according to the Israeli authorities, around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
According to the ruling Hamas authorities, at least 20,057 people have been killed – mostly women, children and teenagers – since the start of the Israeli army's retaliatory offensive in Gaza.