Content warning: this article contains footage which some readers may find distressing.
Israel has been reigning down bombs across Palestine, with Al Jazeera reporting 14 people killed in north Gaza, 8 people killed in Beit Lahia, and 2 people killed in Jabalia refugee camp. Residents in Khan Younis were warned to evacuate. However, these Israel evacuation orders are little more than vapid gestures towards a pretence of following international law.
Israel: ‘execution orders’
Israel has repeatedly used evacuation orders, and designated safe zones supposedly for civilians to shelter in. They have also repeatedly, and belligerently, flouted their own designations. Othman Moqbel, CEO of Action for Humanity, explained:
The research, based on the testimonies of displaced Palestinians on the ground, revealed that Israel’s “evacuation orders” often give people just an hour, and sometimes even less, to pack up what remains of their lives and run for their lives. And when they agree to “evacuate”, they are often still chased by a hail of bullets as they try to find new shelter in another “humanitarian zone”.
Action for Humanity’s own research found that a third of so-called evacuation orders were issued at night while people slept. Surely there can be no pretence that Israel is somehow doing Palestinians a favour by issuing what are effectively warnings of imminent execution, not evacuation.
If people do make it to a so-called safe zone, the environment is no such thing:
The food that can be found in these ever-shrinking humanitarian islands in the strip has almost no nutritional value and is rancid to the point of inedible. As Israel turned off the taps and poisoned most wells with its bombs, there is not sufficient water either.
Moqbel concludes:
There are no “humanitarian zones” or “evacuation orders” but only threats of extermination and islands of mediaeval suffering not fit for basic survival, let alone dignified living.
In fact, as Al Jazeera reported:
Palestinian and United Nations officials also say that there are no safe areas in the enclave. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been internally displaced, some as many as 10 times since the war began last year.
Israeli impunity
Israel has inflicted such terror on Palestine that terms like “safe zone” or “humanitarian zone” are a farce. Middle East Monitor posted footage of what they described as children “incinerated” by Israeli bombs in a designated ‘safe zone’:
Children ‘incinerated’ as Israeli bombs hit Gaza encampment
Israel bombed a camp of displaced people in the Al-Mawasi 'safe zone' near Gaza's Khan Yunis. The strike happened shortly after the sunset prayer, according to an eyewitness, and resulted in at least 21 deaths with many… pic.twitter.com/WC8Y3kQG0U
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) December 5, 2024
Journalist Mohammed Alsaafin posted footage of yet another ‘safe zone’ in Mawasi being bombed by Israel:
The moment an Israeli strike hit displaced people in their tents in the so-called Mawasi safe zone:
pic.twitter.com/puVsPa6TTa https://t.co/TuED1XIFX4
— Mohammad Alsaafin (@malsaafin) December 4, 2024
In the clip, the night time sky is lit up with screeching bombs, and screams of residents fill the air. Whilst mainstream media may be willing to go along with the lie of Israel’s ‘safe zones’ and ‘evacuation orders,’ actual footage, research, and testimony is showing the depravity of Israel’s terror in Palestine.
‘Leave-or-die’
Earlier this summer, Forensic Architecture, who research state and corporate violence, demonstrated how Israel’s ‘evacuation orders’ are just sending already displaced people running for their lives endlessly, from place to place.
A ‘humanitarian zone’ from which displaced people are ordered to evacuate is a meaningless construct. This morning the Israeli army ordered Palestinians in the eastern part of what it had declared an 'expanded humanitarian zone’ on 6 May to evacuate west, towards areas already… https://t.co/fTqcrqLJv5 pic.twitter.com/zNJAgLkIk3
— Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) July 22, 2024
We are still seeing the same pattern, as Israel hounds Palestinians to their death. Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Khalili reported from Jabalia:
After the new Israeli evacuation orders which have been issued this early morning. As you can see, the scene here, civilians have been evicted and forced to displace from their homeland.
Mainstream media doesn’t care about the genocide being perpetrated against Palestinians. They certainly aren’t going to pay attention to the evidence coming out from across Palestine about Israel repeatedly terrorising civilians out of their homes, killing them in the middle of the night, starving them, and further implementing their programme of ethnic cleansing.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English