As civilian casualties mounted on Sunday last week in the Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military reminded the world that it had warned people living in targeted areas to leave.
The response from Palestinians there was unanimous: Where should we go?
UN shelters are already full to the brim, and some Palestinians fear they are not safe — one shelter was bombed by Israel in a previous conflict. Many of Gaza’s residents have sought refuge with relatives, but with large extended families commonly consisting of dozens of relatives, many homes in the shrinking areas considered to be safe are already packed.
Photo: AFP
Perhaps most important, the vast majority of Gazans cannot leave Gaza. They live under restrictions that make this narrow coastal strip, which the UN considers occupied by Israel, unlike anywhere else.
British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 called Gaza “an open-air prison,” drawing criticism from Israel.
However, in reality, the vast majority of Gazans are effectively trapped — unable to seek refugee status across an international border. Most, or their descendants, are already refugees, from what is now Israel.
Photo: Reuters
A 40km-long rectangle about 5km wide, one of the most densely populated places in the world, Gaza is surrounded by concrete walls and fences along its northern and eastern boundaries with Israel and its southern border with Egypt.
Even in what pass for ordinary times here, Israel permits very few Gazans to enter its territory, citing security concerns because suicide bombers and other militants from Gaza have killed Israeli civilians. The restrictions over the years have cost Palestinians jobs, scholarships and travel opportunities.
Egypt has also severely curtailed Gazans’ ability to travel, opening its border crossing with the territory for only 17 days this year. During the current fighting between Israel and the Hamas militants who control Gaza, only those with Egyptian or foreign passports or special permission were allowed to exit.
Photo: AFP
Even the Mediterranean Sea to the west provides no escape. Israel restricts boats from Gaza to 5.6km offshore, and Gaza, its airspace controlled by Israel, has no airport.
While 3 million Syrians have fled the country during the war there, an increasing number of Gaza’s 1.7 million people have been moving away from the edges of the strip and crowding into the already-packed center of Gaza City.
The al-Attar family, from northern Gaza, was crammed into a UN school classroom on Sunday last week, 27 relatives in total, their clothing hung on hooks for children’s book bags. They had moved first to a relative’s house, where 34 people shared two rooms, then tried to rent an apartment, but could find none free. They longed for a truce so they could go home. Even in downtown Gaza, there had been several deadly strikes during the day, including one that killed four children.
“The problem is that when we are fleeing from the shelling, we still find the shelling around us,” Maissa al-Attar, 21, said.
On Sunday, families were fleeing artillery barrages on foot, or being killed in their homes, as the Israelis pushed into the city’s Shejaiya neighborhood in an operation the military says aims to locate and destroy tunnels used by Hamas militants to enter Israel and carry out attacks.
The chaos has made some outside observers question why people did not leave earlier, before the ground offensive neared them. The Israeli military has said it has given Gazans every opportunity to avoid injury by calling on them to evacuate neighborhoods it is about to target. Leaflets were dropped in Shejaiya on Saturday last week, residents said, and a senior military official said warnings had begun days earlier.
“Staying at home when you’re 100 percent sure there’s going to be fighting there is much worse,” the official said. “Be out for two or three days; it’s better than being in the battlefield.”
Still, many fled only when shells began flying.
Israeli officials speculate that Hamas militants have threatened people with retaliation if they leave, using them as human shields.
Gazans did not mention such threats as a factor — although some said that they did not feel free to criticize Hamas.
Such fears did not seem to deter 81,000 people who have fled to UN shelters, and tens of thousands more who have gone to relatives’ homes.
However, Hamas might have misled people into a false sense of safety.
It proclaimed on radio and television that the Israeli warnings were part of a psychological operation and urged people to ignore them. Some were surprised at how far west into the areas that received warnings the Israelis pushed on Sunday, having reasoned that only the eastern areas, closer to the border, would be seriously threatened.
Another factor is that Gaza’s extended families can include dozens of people — half of all residents of Gaza are children — and moving is not as simple as packing a bag and running. Families are deeply rooted in their neighborhoods and many lack potential hosts elsewhere.
The al-Attars thought of selling their farmland near the Israeli border, to move somewhere safer, but they could not afford apartments in Gaza City, where the scarcity of land, especially near the sea, drives high prices.
Also, family members depend on the land, growing vegetables and raising poultry for food and to make a living.
Moreover, as al-Attar said: “It’s not just a house to sell and buy another; it’s our life and our grandparents’ life.”
Under fire in Shejaiya, some residents said they simply did not want to heed the orders of a foreign government they consider an occupier, and preferred to stay in their homes.
One man on Sunday, having escorted his family out from under shelling, said: “I’m going back, I’m not afraid,” and began marching back into the smoking neighborhood.
Only after his sister ran after him pleading did he reconsider.
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