Dina Mahmoud (Gaza, London)
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) estimated yesterday that the orders issued by the Israeli army the day before yesterday to evacuate neighborhoods in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip affect about a quarter of a million people.
“We have seen people moving to other places, families moving to other places, people starting to pack their belongings and trying to leave this area,” said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Waterridge.
She added, “UNRWA estimates that about 250,000 people were affected by these orders,” adding, “We expect these numbers to increase.”
“The quarter million is UNRWA’s estimate of the population of the area who were ordered to evacuate east of Khan Younis,” Waterridge explained.
“These eviction orders are a devastating new blow to the humanitarian response, and to people and families who appear to be forcibly displaced time and time again,” she said.
She noted that “since the start of the ground offensive in Rafah in May, people have returned to the devastated Khan Younis area, but with the new orders last night, the same families will have to move again,” adding that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip.
The government media in Gaza reported that the eastern neighborhoods and towns of Khan Yunis witnessed the displacement of thousands of people towards the camps in the middle of the Strip and “Mawasi Khan Yunis” due to the intense artillery shelling.
A World Health Organization spokesman said yesterday that the European Hospital in Khan Younis was almost empty after staff and patients fled following Israeli evacuation orders.
“The hospital staff and patients have decided to evacuate now,” said Rick Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, adding that only three patients remain in the hospital.
Western analysts confirmed that the increasing indications that the Israeli army is close to ending its operation in the city of Rafah, and also moving to what is described as the “third phase” of the war, opens the door to several political and military scenarios that may be embodied on different levels during the next few months.
There are expectations that the curtain will fall on what the Israeli Prime Minister previously described as the “most intense fighting” phase, leading to a greater focus on carrying out “local” raids and attacks in the Strip, primarily aimed at releasing the remaining hostages and achieving other operational goals.
According to experts, such limited raids may be carried out in different and scattered parts of the Strip, similar to the operation that took place in the Nuseirat camp in the middle of the Strip early last month, which led to the release of 4 detainees, and at the same time claimed the lives of more than 270 Palestinians.
These operations, which Israeli military officials say may last for a short period, may also include re-raiding areas from which their forces had previously withdrawn, in anticipation that Palestinian fighters may have regrouped there in the past few weeks.
Observers have monitored this pattern of operations several times since the outbreak of the war.
In March, the Israeli army attacked the Al-Shifa complex in Gaza City, after raiding it four months earlier.
Over the course of three weeks in May, Israeli forces carried out a military operation in the Jabalia camp, even though they had invaded the same area last November.
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