A second Nakba? Israel orders 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate Northern Gaza

A second Nakba? Israel orders 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate Northern Gaza

DEMOCRACY NOW

Israel’s military on Friday ordered 1.1 million civilians in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate “southwards” in just 24 hours, a demand that aid groups say will cause untold human suffering. The ultimatum comes ahead of an expected ground invasion of the besieged coastal enclave, where authorities say 1,537 people have been killed since Israel began devastating airstrikes in retaliation for a Hamas attack in which militants killed 1,300 people and took some 150 hostages. Hamas says the intense Israeli bombardment that has pulverized much of Gaza also killed 13 hostages. Meanwhile, Israel continues to maintain a total blockade of the territory, blocking food, water, fuel and medicine from reaching those trapped inside. For more on the crisis and mounting human toll, we speak with Gaza writer Muhammad Shehada, who condemns the international community and mainstream media for its complicity in Israel’s destruction of Gaza. “These things are unimaginable horrors that are inflicted on Gaza right now with no one intervening to stop it,” he says. “This is pure madness.”

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where Israel last night ordered the evacuation within 24 hours of all Palestinians living in the northern Gaza Strip — some 1.1 million people within 24 hours. The United Nations has condemned the order, saying it’s, quote, “impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” unquote.

Much of Gaza is already in the dark, as Israel has cut off energy, food and water supplies. The seven-day Israeli bombardment has killed at least 1,500 Palestinians. Israel declared war after Saturday’s surprise brutal attack by Hamas militants on Israel, where the death toll has reached 1,300. Israel is now amassing tanks on the border of Gaza ahead of what appears to be an imminent ground invasion.

Some 400,000 Palestinians had already been displaced prior to Israel’s evacuation order last night. Some groups have announced plans to defy Israel’s order. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said, quote, “Despite the occupation’s threats to shell; the decision has been made. We did and will not leave. Our medics will carry on their humanitarian duties. We won’t leave people face death alone,” unquote.

Many in Gaza fear Israel’s evacuation order is the start of a second Nakba. Seventy-five years ago, in 1948, some 700,000 Palestinians fled from or were violently expelled from their homes upon Israel’s founding in 1948. Much of Gaza’s population are refugees from families displaced 75 year ago.

We begin today’s show with Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, columnist at The Forward newspaper, a Jewish weekly in New York. He’s joining us from Copenhagen.

Muhammad, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you describe what’s happening on the ground? And first respond to this order from the Israeli government that half the population of Gaza, 1.1 million people, must leave the north and head south, and they gave them 24 hours last night to do it.

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yes. Thanks, Amy.

I’ve been through at least six Israeli military operations, or even more. This is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my entire life and nothing like Gaza has ever seen, in terms of magnitude, scale, level of destruction and death. Entire neighborhoods are totally unrecognizable.

With the evacuation orders, it’s basically plain and very obvious forcible transfers. And its most important thing about it is that it’s unimplementable. If you know Gaza geographically and physically and the devastation of infrastructure there, you would know that most roads are broken. There is vast electricity, internet outages. People are not getting any news. At the same time, the area that Israel wants people to go out of is the most densely populated part of Gaza and the area with the most safe shelters, these U.N. schools — although not very safe, because Israel bombed a lot of them over the last six days, but it’s the area with the most U.N. schools. It’s the area with the most hospitals. And right now you have over 7,000 Palestinians wounded in al-Shifa Hospital and other hospitals around Gaza, around the area that Israel wants them to evacuate from. So, by the mere act of evacuation, many people are going to lose their lives.

The other issue is that there are not enough houses, not enough spaces or shelter in the south of Gaza that Israel wants to push people towards to be in. The only realistic outcome of this is that we’re going have people just literally baking in the sun in 30 degrees Celsius temperature, about 85 degrees Fahrenheit, daily, in the sun, in the street, without any access to hospitals, any access to food or water, let alone the sheer terror of Palestinians experiencing a second Nakba. Many people there are saying, “We’re not leaving our homes.” The Palestinian Red Crescent said, “We refuse to evacuate, because we’re not going to let our people face death alone.”

At the same time, I’m aware that there is some pressure from European officials on the Israeli government discreetly to sort of backtrack this decision, but they are telling me, quite obviously, that it’s unlikely they would have much influence on Israel without the U.S. coming on board. And until now, the Biden administration hasn’t made its mind up about an event that’s way, way more horrendous than the Palestinian Nakba. We’re talking almost about double the amount of Palestinians that were displaced in 1948 just gone in 24 hours.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ve been trying to reach guests in Gaza and were not able to make any connection at this point. Muhammad Shehada, if you could explain more the conditions on the ground? And the significance, as I listened last night to the general director of the Palestine Red Crescent Society say, “How do we move people out of hospitals with this short amount of time, not to mention more than a million people?”

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yes. So, before the evacuation orders, almost everyone I know in Gaza, they say, “Our knees cannot lift us up.” They haven’t had any sleep for more than two to three hours a night, punctuated by constant military airstrikes, because Israel dropped, up until yesterday, about 6,000 bombs on Gaza in six days. That’s about a bomb every one-and-a-half minutes. Every single neighborhood in Gaza was damaged, every single street, area. All the famous sites are completely gone, pulverized.

At the same time, I talked — the last time I talked to people was this morning. I talked to at least two to three people, and I lost them as I was talking with him on the line, because of airstrikes or running out of electricity and internet. Israel bombed Gaza’s main telecommunication company on the third or fourth day of this escalation, bombed it completely, leading to outages in vast areas of Gaza. And the last time I talked to someone, the last one I spoke to is a Gazan Irish citizen. He holds Irish citizenship, European. And he was telling me basically this: “I only have few liters of water in my home, for a family of six. I don’t know where am I going to go. I have a few batteries, and they’re running out of power.” And he doesn’t know if he’s going to stay alive.

Most people I know in Gaza are uploading — literally, uploading their wills and last words to their social media accounts and begging for forgiveness from anyone that they’ve ever wronged or done anything to, and saying, “Please forgive us, and we forgive you, as well.” This is what it has come down to.

AMY GOODMAN: Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett exploded at a Sky News anchor, Kamali Melbourne, during an interview Thursday, after Melbourne pressed Bennett on Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civilians. Here’s a portion of the exchange.

KAMALI MELBOURNE: What about those Palestinians in hospital who are on life support and babies in incubators, whose life support and incubator will have to be turned off because the Israelis have cut the power to Gaza?

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