Israel orders Gazans to leave the North, but most are staying put

NEW YORK TIMES

For more than a year, as Israeli bombs pounded northern Gaza around Mariam Awwad’s home, she and her family of 11 have refused to leave.

Their resolve did not change even after the Israeli military dropped leaflets over the town of Jabaliya on Sunday, ordering Palestinians in northern Gaza to evacuate to the south. The military was renewing an offensive on the north, saying it was going after Hamas fighters.

“We refuse to flee only to die in humiliation,” Ms. Awwad, 23, an advertising copywriter who lives with her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, said Thursday in an interview. “Death is death, whether we die here or elsewhere. So let’s die with dignity in our home.”

Roughly 400,000 people remain in Gaza’s north, according to the United Nations, and most appear to either be taking a defiant stance similar to Ms. Awwad’s, or do not have the means to flee. Others may be fearful of being permanently displaced from their homes, even as the United Nations and aid groups are sounding the alarm over a worsening humanitarian situation, including the closure of hospitals.

The World Food Program said Wednesday that with the main aid crossings into northern Gaza closed and its partner kitchens forced to shut because of the evacuation orders, it is no longer able to distribute food to families who desperately need it.

Israel has said it is trying to eliminate a regrouped Hamas presence in the north, and accuses Hamas of embedding in civilian areas. On Thursday, Israel said it had killed 12 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members in a strike on a command center in Jabaliya, in an area that had been a medical compound. It said two of those killed took part in the Hamas-led attack on Israel last year that prompted the war.

The latest Israeli offensive in the north has killed more than 100 people over the past five days, according to Palestinian state media, adding to what health officials say are more than 42,000 Gazans killed since the beginning of the war. The figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

Even as the Israeli military has ordered Palestinians in the north to leave, it has made it harder for those in Jabaliya to do so, according to residents, aid groups and Palestinian news media. Since Wednesday, Jabaliya has been surrounded by Israeli forces, trapping people inside, according to the United Nations.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about whether people were being prevented from leaving Jabaliya.

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas said that “the steadfast and proud northern Gaza is being annihilated by the terrorist enemy.” It added that “massacres” were being committed against the Palestinians in an attempt to break their will.

Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, said, “People are now trapped in Jabaliya, there’s a lot of military operations around Jabaliya, so our colleagues are reporting that the ones who stayed are now trapped and unable to leave.”

She added that the situation in the north was “pretty chaotic,” and that the evacuation maps the Israeli military had put out were not always clear. “These evacuation orders cause a lot of confusion,” she said.

Some people in northern Gaza are simply choosing to stay in their homes, Ms. Wateridge said, while others are just moving to other places in the north, and there has been no mass evacuation to the south.

The Israeli military has also ordered three hospitals in the north to evacuate their patients and staff, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The director of one of them, the Kamal Adwan Hospital, recorded a video plea on Thursday morning, calling on the international community and international rights groups to prevent Israel from forcing them to evacuate.

“All our cases are severe cases,” the director, Dr. Husam Abu Safiyeh, said in the video, which was released by the ministry. It shows a tiny baby with a pink blanket in an incubator, and then several children on beds, all on ventilators.

All of the patients, the doctor said, were victims of Israeli airstrikes. “These patients can’t be transferred, and I don’t think any other hospital can admit this many patients who are on ventilators,” he said.

A U.N. investigation commission said Thursday in a report that “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s health care system” with its relentless attacks on medical personnel and facilities.

The three hospitals fall in the evacuation zone. The Israeli military did not respond to questions about why they were being ordered to evacuate, but it has accused Hamas of using hospitals to hide its fighters and operations, and has raided and attacked several in Gaza over the course of the war.

Hamas, and hospital administrators, have rejected Israel’s claims.

Evidence provided by the Israeli military and examined by The New York Times suggests that Hamas has used one hospital, Al Shifa, to store weapons inside it while also maintaining a tunnel beneath it. But the Israeli military has not presented similar evidence about numerous other hospitals across the Gaza Strip that it has raided and attacked.

Ms. Awwad and her family are living in their partly destroyed home. When gunfire and explosions sound nearby, the adults try to comfort the children with hugs, she said.

On Wednesday, she said a window fell on a family living on the floor above them.

“We sit in the middle of the house, away from the windows, and pray for our situation to improve,” Ms. Awwad said. “We repeat our prayers asking for relief. That’s how we survive these dark days.”

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