You get to choose whether to remotely see and hear a small glimpse of what people in Gaza are suffering from. They do not get to choose whether or not to experience it firsthand.
Violence Blur
Shelling Volume
On the 21st of Oct. 2023 and after continuous bombarded from Israel for two weeks, residents of north Gaza received leaflets from the Israeli army ordering immediate evacuation to south Gaza.
The leaflet included the following: Urgent Warning
To the residents of Gaza:
Your presence in north Gaza exposes your life to danger.
Anyone who chooses not to evacuate to south of Wadi Gaza may be determined to be an accomplice of a terrorist system.
In other words, it gives over one million residents the option of either leaving their home, schools, mosques, and everything and evacuate to south Gaza where they have absolutely nothing, or to be possibly considered a terrorist and be murdered. This statement in itself also violates international humanitarian law which urges the protection of civilians.
The head of the Norwegian refugee council has declared this order a war crime. A spokesperson of the United Nations human rights office mentioned that “We are concerned that this order, combined with the imposition of a complete siege of Gaza, may not be considered as lawful temporary evacuation and would therefore amount to a forcible transfer of civilians in breach of international law”. It has also been reported that the UN later declared the evacuation as a war crime.
The 21st of October wasn’t the start of the evacuation order, it started on the 14th of October when Israel demanded northern Gaza residents to evacuate within 24 hours. This was condemned by the UN as "impossible without devastating humanitarian consequences. The order included evacuating hospitals, which has been regarded as “outrageous” and "an attack on medical care and on humanity" by Doctors Without Borders.
Matters get worse because CNN has reported that an Israeli air strike has killed a large number of people that responded to the order as they were heading south along one of the routes designated as safe by Israel.
Furthermore, On the 18th of Nov. 2023, BBC reported that Citizens in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza which hosts hundreds of thousands who fled northern Gaza in October received orders from the Israeli military to leave the city. The main of part of the leaflet reads “To the residents of the eastern neighbourhoods of Khan Younis: Al Qarara, Khuzaa, Bani Suheila, and Abasan, for your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and head to the known shelters.”
Around the same time, the Guardian has reported that UN has warned that Palestinians face the “immediate possibility” of starvation, infectious diseases are spreading, and the war there is expected to intensify in coming days and that the original evacuation order did not guarantee the safety of civilians whatsoever because over three thousand people have been killed in South Gaza in the first forty day of the conflict.
A spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council pointed that the order is "simply unrealistic, let alone unlawful". Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, described the plan as “a recipe for disaster”.
