Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians still remain in the northern part of the Gaza Strip despite warnings to move to the south, as the Israeli regime continues its deadly bombing campaign in the besieged enclave.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Palestinians who are still in the region say the trip to the south is too dangerous.
The report came a day after the Israeli military announced that it had given a four-hour window for civilians inside Gaza City to evacuate the area and move to the south earlier in the day. This is while Israel has continued to rain down bombs on the south.
In a phone interview, Jinan al-Salya said she and her family decided to leave northern Gaza and head south despite the risks.
She said that they hadn’t gone far on Saturday, when they came under fire and had to return north on foot, walking between bloody bodies sprawled along the road.
“It was a horror situation. I’m in total shock,” Salya said, adding that she believed the shell that hit their car had been fired by an Israeli tank.
Ahmed Ferwana, who lives in the al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, said he thought it was too dangerous to venture to Rafah.
Ferwana further noted that he felt it was “better to die at home than to die on the street” after his neighborhood was hit by heavy Israeli airstrikes.
Iyad al-Bazam, the Gazan interior minister, said on Tuesday that 900,000 people remained in northern Gaza, adding that Jabaliya and Al Shati were the most densely populated areas.
David Satterfield, the US special envoy for Mideast humanitarian issues, also estimated on Saturday that at least 350,000 to 400,000 people remained in northern Gaza.
According to UN monitors, during a four-hour evacuation window on Sunday, fewer than 2,000 made the move, followed by about 5,000 on Monday.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, into the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
Israel has already ordered some 1.1 million living in northern Gaza to evacuate to southern regions as the regime prepares a full-scale ground invasion into the small blockaded territory.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
According to the Gaza-based health ministry, at least 10,328 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes, most of them women and children, while nearly 26,000 others have been injured.
