The Gaza Strip is once again at the centre of a deadly escalation as Israeli forces pound the besieged territory with massive artillery barrages and continuous airstrikes for the third week in a row.
About a fifth of Gaza is now covered by Israeli evacuation orders. Last week, the Israeli military issued such orders for northern Gaza and Rafah, warning that it could soon launch a major ground offensive.
Palestinians who had returned to their homes in Rafah during the recent two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are now fleeing once again, even as they have nowhere else to go.
“We have nowhere else to go to when we are told to leave. There is no time to pack our stuff, as we have already been displaced. We have no money to pay for transport. We are stuck in the streets. We are human beings. We deserve to live,” said Alaa Abu Shabab, 24, a displaced resident of Gaza.
The Israeli Army has issued additional mass evacuation orders to the residents of Khan Younis and extended them to several neighbourhoods of Gaza City. According to the UN, 280,000 people have been displaced since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire with Hamas on 2 March, halting aid and fuel supplies into war-torn Gaza.
As the humanitarian crisis in the Strip deepens, new details have emerged about Israeli proposals concerning the future of Gaza’s population. Israel has proposed “facilitating” the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza to third countries, including Indonesia, Somalia, South Sudan, Egypt, and Jordan.
While the Israeli authorities are framing the move as a humanitarian gesture, many Arab countries and international organisations have denounced the idea, viewing it as an attempt to displace the Palestinians rather than address the root causes of the crisis.
On 1 April, a group of Palestinians with foreign citizenship were allowed to leave Gaza through Ramon Airport in southern Israel. The process was coordinated with German officials and saw hundreds of people flown to Germany, reportedly as part of an arrangement for voluntary departures from the Gaza Strip.
Additional groups of Palestinians were flown to Romania and Ukraine.
For many Palestinians, especially those enduring the severe hardships caused by the blockade, military actions, and the ongoing displacement in Gaza, the idea of migration could be viewed as an escape from their hellish reality.
Anas Al-Bakri, 40, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he would prefer to die rather than be displaced time and time again.
“I swear I don’t know where to go with my family. I have five children. We are exhausted, hungry, and too tired to walk. We are fed up. Let us out of this hell,” Al-Bakri said.
“I don’t care where they take us. Let them take us to Mars. It already feels like we have been pulled out of our lives and dropped into another world where nobody cares. I want to live with dignity, raise my children, send them to school, and live in peace. I’m homeless now with no job, no present, and no future.”
Since 18 March, Israel has intensified its military attacks on civilians in Gaza, with recent airstrikes not only destroying remaining homes but also targeting tents and other shelters, leaving displaced people with nowhere safe to go.
Meanwhile, people in Gaza are still being killed by the Israeli military.
On 2 April, Israeli airstrikes targeted a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) shelter in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza. At least 15 people including nine children and two women were killed, and dozens were wounded, according to local health officials.
On 3 April, Israeli airstrikes hit the Dar Al-Arqami School in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City. The school, used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians who have lost their home in previous Israeli attacks, was struck overnight, leaving 27 dead, and more than 100 injured.
Shortly afterwards, Israeli airstrikes hit the Fahd Al-Sabah School in the same neighbourhood, killing at least 34 people, including three women, and injuring more than 100 others.
In a blatant act of violence against humanitarian workers, Israeli forces fired on a convoy of humanitarian vehicles that was responding to an emergency call to assist the wounded following Israeli airstrikes on 23 March in the Al-Hashashin neighbourhood of Rafah in southern Gaza.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 15 medics, eight members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), five civil-defence workers, and one United Nations employee. One paramedic, Assad Al-Nassasra, remains missing and is believed to have been detained, according to the PRCS.
It said that the victims, who disappeared for eight days before being located, were shot at close range, with some found with their hands or legs tied and later buried in a makeshift mass grave.
The International Red Cross (ICRC) and the PRCS condemned the massacre, describing it as one of the worst carried out against their staff in eight years and a crime against humanitarian work in general.
The German Federal Foreign Office called for an urgent investigation into the deaths of Palestinian paramedics and relief workers in Israeli airstrikes targeting the vehicles they were traveling in while carrying out their work in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
A Ministry spokesperson said in a statement that the video released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society late last week, which contradicts the Israeli narrative, is truly heinous and requires urgent clarification.
In contrast to footage circulating on the Internet, the Israeli Army claimed earlier this week that its troops did not randomly attack the ambulances and that some vehicles “were identified approaching in a suspicious manner without lights or emergency signals towards the soldiers,” who fired in response.
In the same context, a video capturing the heroic rescue operation of a man trapped under the rubble at the Dar Al-Arqam School in Gaza went viral this week, highlighting the extraordinary risks Palestinian civil-defence teams face every day.
Palestinian civil-defence worker Nooh Al-Shaghnoobi and his team were pulling a man from under the rubble after the first Israeli airstrike hit the school, even as a second strike was imminent.
The man asked the team to leave and run for their lives. But they refused in an incredible demonstration of heroism and bravery. They kept digging, but were unable to free him, and ran out of the school only a few minutes before the next strike, promising they would come back again to help.
In other footage, civil-defence teams appear pulling a family from the rubble of a collapsed building following an Israeli airstrike. Despite the constant threat of other airstrikes and widespread destruction, the rescue workers spent hours digging through the debris to reach the family, which had been trapped for over 24 hours.
A mother, father, and two children were miraculously pulled to safety.
These incidents are part of a broader pattern of Israeli airstrikes on civilian structures in Gaza, including schools and hospitals, in a clear violation of international humanitarian law. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 1,309 Palestinians have been killed and 3,184 injured by Israeli air strikes as of 18 March following the end of the truce by Israel.
Medical workers in Gaza have been overwhelmed by the mounting challenges. Hospitals are at full capacity, and vital supplies are running out, making it difficult for them deal with the growing number of casualties.
At the same time, civil-defence teams are struggling to rescue those trapped under the rubble, with constant airstrikes and damaged infrastructure hindering their efforts.
According to the local authorities, all the bakeries in Gaza have been shut down due to a severe shortage of fuel and flour as a result of Israel’s nearly month-long blockade on humanitarian aid.
Abdel-Nasser Al-Ajrami, the director of the Gaza Bakery Owners Association, confirmed that bakeries in Gaza are no longer operating due to a critical shortage of fuel and flour.
“The World Food Programme (WFP) informed us today that its warehouses have run out of flour,” Al-Ajrami said. “The bakeries will remain closed until the Israeli Occupation reopens the crossings and allows vital supplies to enter,” he added.
The WFP supports 18 bakeries in Gaza, and their closure is expected to worsen the already dire hunger and malnutrition crisis affecting two million people living in the devastated territory.
“What else are they going to take from us? There’s no bread in the market, and the bakeries have closed. One sack of flour is 500 shekels. I couldn’t buy it even if it was available. What am I supposed to do? Bake with sand?” said Hanan Madi, a mother of five, speaking to the Weekly.
As Gaza grapples with the escalating humanitarian challenges, the disruption of water supplies coupled with ongoing power outages has intensified the crisis, leaving residents in an increasingly desperate situation.
On Saturday, the Israeli Army stopped the water supply from Mekorot, Israel’s state-run water company, to the Gaza Strip, cutting off 70 per cent of the territory’s overall water resources.
Gaza Municipality Spokesperson Hosni Mehanna said on Saturday that the disconnection impacted the main pipeline in the Shujaiya neighbourhood east of Gaza City, an area where Israeli forces have been operating since Thursday.
Meanwhile, Israel has taken steps to tighten its grip on the southern Gaza Strip. On 2 April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was setting up a new security corridor across the southern Strip dubbed the Morag Corridor.
He said the purpose of the corridor, named after a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, was to separate the two cities and to seize territory in order to retrieve Israeli hostages in Hamas’ captivity.
According to a statement by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, at least 39,000 children in the Gaza Strip have been orphaned as a result of the ongoing Israeli assaults on the territory.
The tragic toll highlights the devastating impact of the Israeli airstrikes and ground operations, which have left thousands of children without one or both parents.
Israel has escalated its attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past week, causing widespread destruction and human losses. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 50,669 Palestinians have been killed and 115,225 injured by Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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