Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated enclave.
Gemma Connell, team leader for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), described what she called a "human chess board" in which thousands of people, displaced many times already, are on the run again and there is no guarantee a destination will be safe.
"People were heading up south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans, trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe," said Connell, who on Monday visited the Deir al-Balah neighbourhood in central Gaza.
"I've spoken to many people. There's so little space left here in Rafah that people just don't know where they will go and it really feels like people being moved around a human chessboard because there's an evacuation order somewhere."
"People flee that area into another area. But they're not safe there," added Connell.
An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and crowded into shelters or makeshift tents in the winter cold, even as the fighting comes ever closer.
'No safe place in Gaza'
Connell also described the death of a nine-year-old boy named Ahmed in al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip, where many of the wounded in Israeli airstrikes overnight were brought and where she spent around 90 minutes.
"He was not in an area under an evacuation order. He was in an area that was supposed to be safe. There is no safe place in Gaza," she said, adding that new airstrikes took place when she was at the hospital and she witnessed wounded being brought in.
She shared the text of a notification from the Israeli military urging residents of at least half-a-dozen central Gazan neighbourhoods to evacuate on Friday.
It says the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will soon be operating in their neighbourhood and urges them to evacuate "temporarily and move to shelters" in Deir al-Balah.
The army spokesperson told Reuters: "The IDF will act against Hamas wherever it operates, with full commitment to international law, while distinguishing between terrorists and civilians, and taking all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians."
US officials have repeatedly said they expect Israel to scale down its operations to a more low-intensity phase of more targeted and surgical operations.
However, Israeli operations have intensified.
Christmas Eve proved to be one of the deadliest nights in the 11-week-old war between Israel and Hamas, as Palestinian health officials in Gaza said Israeli airstrikes in central and southern Gaza killed more than 100 Palestinians, bringing the death toll to nearly 20,700.
'Real hunger'
Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people are enduring dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.
"Now there is real hunger," said Nour Ismail, who was waiting for food to be distributed in the southern city of Rafah.
"My children are dying of hunger."
“The levels of hunger and desperation in Gaza are reaching catastrophic levels.
— WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (@WHOEMRO) December 25, 2023
Food and water being delivered to two hospitals in north Gaza on 23/12 were forcibly taken by people, desperate to eat.”
- Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean pic.twitter.com/JJ8TlvncPD
WHO staff also visited a hospital treating victims of the strikes and "heard harrowing accounts" from health workers and victims, said the agency's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, described the fate of a nine-year-old being treated who was expected to die.
"He was crossing the street in front of the shelter where his family is staying and the building beside him blew up," he said.
WHO today visited Al-Aqsa Hospital, where scores of injured people were taken overnight following strikes in central #Gaza, including in the vicinity of the Maghazi refugee camp.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 25, 2023
Palestinian health authorities reported that 70 people were killed, while Al-Aqsa Hospital staff… pic.twitter.com/B5503C82CT
No peace 'until Hamas destroyed'
As Palestinians mourned their losses, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up the fight against Hamas militants until their rulers are "destroyed" and Palestinian society is "de-radicalised".
Netanyahu told Likud party members on Monday that he was ready to support the voluntary migration of civilians out of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The cross-border attack on 7 October 2023 killed 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139, according to the final Israeli count.
And 240 people were abducted.
(With newswires)
