The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned that the forced expulsion of Gaza City residents into overcrowded and under-resourced areas would amount to “a death sentence for one million Palestinians.”
In a statement released on Sunday, the charity warned that an estimated one million, including hundreds of gravely ill patients and newborns, displaced people now occupy just 15 percent of the blockaded Palestinian territory. Severe water shortages in Gaza had now reached critical levels, it added
“MSF continues to distribute water in the city, but with no water reserves left, if the Israeli forces make drinkable water production and distribution impossible, people will die in a matter of days,” said Jacob Granger, Emergency coordinator for MSF in Gaza.
MSF further said Israel’s relentless bombing and ground offensive in the northern city were killing hundreds of Palestinians and displacing countless people, often multiple times.
“Some of our colleagues have been displaced more than 11 times since 2023,” Granger added.
The Israeli military has issued multiple evacuation warnings for Gaza City, but many residents say they have nowhere else to go.
An Israeli military spokesman on Sunday issued a warning to those in Gaza’s port area and al-Rimal neighborhood to evacuate immediately to a so-called “humanitarian zone” in the south, where Gazans say there is no more space to pitch tents.
Israel has repeatedly struck the area in the south of the besieged strip, where it has urged people to move. Palestinian families streamed out of Gaza City on Sunday as Israeli forces pressed their assault on the territory’s main urban center.
The scenes of mass flight from Gaza City came as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel in a show of support, despite an Israeli strike in Qatar this week.
Before the latest assault, the United Nations had estimated that around a million people lived in and around Gaza City, where it officially declared famine last month.
Foreign doctors in Gaza describe a pattern of children killed by single gunshots to the head or chest, saying it shows Israel is deliberately targeting them.
In the city itself, “the bombardment hasn’t stopped since dawn,” local residents and witnesses said.
“We haven’t slept all night… The sounds of shelling and explosions have not stopped until now,” said Umm Alaa Shaaban, 45, a resident of Tal al-Hawa district in Gaza City’s southwest.
Mohammed Ghazal, 32, who fled from Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood, also said the strikes were relentless.
The Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza continues, with its focus remaining on destroying more residential buildings and infrastructure in Gaza City.
On Sunday, it said it had struck another high-rise where it claims that the Hamas resistance movement had set up “observation posts to monitor the location of… troops in the area.”
At least 48 people have been killed since dawn across Gaza.
Palestinian and international organizations have once again condemned Israel
In the past 24 hours alone, the dead bodies of 10 people seeking aid arrived at hospitals in the besieged Strip.
Since the end of May, when the US-administered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began its aid distribution, nearly 2,500 people have been killed in or near those sites.
The overall death toll has now surpassed 64,800 since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023.
