Testimonies describe forced displacement campaign in northern Gaza
Palestinian families fleeing from the central Gaza strip to Rafah on 4 January 2024
Tareq S Hajjaj reports in Mondoweiss on 31 January 2024:
Metres away from Egypt’s border with the city of Rafah in southern Gaza stands Mahmoud Ahmad, whose real name has been altered at his request. Mahmoud asks passers-by about a place where he can find shelter for himself and his family, who were recently displaced from Gaza City. With a yellowed face and a hesitant voice emanating from his frail body, the weary-eyed young man tells me how his family of six arrived in Rafah on foot.
Mahmoud’s testimony is a direct refutation of the Israeli propaganda claims that the army is not forcibly displacing people from their homes. Mahmoud and his family live west of Gaza City near the Ansar area, where the Israeli army invaded last week. They had originally sought refuge at a shelter east of Gaza City in the Daraj neighborhood, but after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Western Gaza, they returned to their home there. In Gaza, the Israeli army calls inhabitants according to their area of residence.
“The occupation would call us on our phones and order us to go to specific locations within Gaza City,” Mahmoud tells Mondoweiss. “They would call someone in Ansar [west of Gaza City] and tell them to go to north of Gaza. Then, when we reached a shelter in al-Daraj [in the north], we got another call telling us to evacuate back to the West.”
“In this way, they force us to go from one place to another,” he continues. “They cause chaos, and then we get caught in the middle.”
…. …. ….
“We were yelling as they got closer, telling them that we are civilians,” Mahmoud continues. “We told them, ‘We don’t have any weapons. We don’t have anything that can hurt you.’” No one responded to them until the soldiers reached their apartment. Mahmoud’s family raised their hands, holding pieces of white cloth and their ID cards in either hand. They looked into the soldiers’ eyes and kept repeating that they were civilians and that they demanded safe passage, as they had just been following army directions and moving to designated safe zones.
None of their entreaties worked. Within seconds, everyone was blindfolded and bound with their hands behind their backs and made to face the wall.