DaysofPal – Many residents of Gaza City are refusing to evacuate despite Israel declaring the territory’s largest urban center a combat zone. Once home to 700,000 people, the city saw mass displacement during the war, only for many to return during a short-lived ceasefire earlier this year, before Israel broke it.
Fedaa Hamad, displaced from Beit Hanoun, said she has “no plans to leave” Gaza City this time:
“We are tired from the first displacement. Where are we going to go? Is there a place in the south? We cannot find it.”
Another local, Akram Mzini, echoed her determination: “We have previously been displaced to the south, and relocation in the south is difficult and expensive. Life is difficult, so we will stay in our home, and whatever God wants will happen.”
In a statement on Sunday, Gaza’s Government Media Office accused Israeli occupation forces of committing systematic crimes against civilians, including the use of more than 80 booby-trapped robots detonated in residential neighborhoods over the past three weeks. The explosions destroyed homes and endangered civilian lives, the statement said.
Despite escalating bombardments and starvation, the office confirmed that more than one million Palestinians remain in Gaza City and the north, refusing to submit to forced displacement and what it described as ethnic cleansing.
Christians and Muslims United in Refusal to Leave
Residents across Gaza City, Muslims and Christians alike, say there is nowhere safe left to flee. Nour Ayyad, a Christian woman in her mid-thirties who lives in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood after her home was destroyed, rejected Israel’s warnings to evacuate south.
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” she said, recalling how she was wounded during an earlier bombardment while sheltering in a church. Israel later claimed the strike was a mistake.
The current Israeli ground operation in Gaza and the north began on April 10, when forces invaded the Shuja’iyya neighborhood east of Gaza City, forcing residents to evacuate under intense air and artillery fire. On May 10, the offensive expanded to the Tuffah neighborhood in the northeast, followed soon after by the evacuation of the entire Northern Governorate, including Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and the Jabalia refugee camp.
Then, on August 10, Israeli troops pushed into the Zeitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City, spreading destruction into the adjacent Sabra area.
According to Gaza officials, more than 300,000 Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip have fled westward into Gaza City, while 200,000 more were displaced from eastern and southern areas of the city during these operations.
Yet despite relentless attacks, hundreds of thousands continue to resist Israel’s orders to evacuate. For many, repeated displacement has left them with no shelter, no resources, and no faith that moving south would bring safety.
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