The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) today condemned Israel’s plans for a mass evacuation of Gaza City, stressing that it would be ‘impossible’ to carry out in a ‘safe and dignified’ way.
‘It is impossible to proceed with a mass evacuation of Gaza City in a safe and dignified manner under the current circumstances,’ said Mirjana Spoljaric in a press release.
‘Such an evacuation would cause a massive displacement of people that no area in the Gaza Strip can absorb, given the extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure and the extreme shortages of food, water, shelter, and medical care,’ she stressed.
The Israeli army yesterday declared Gaza City a ‘dangerous combat zone’, preparing for a large-scale attack, as sought by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, with the aim of defeating Hamas and returning all hostages. The army did not explicitly call for the evacuation of the city, but a spokesperson said on Wednesday that it would be ‘unavoidable’.
‘Many civilians will not be in a position to obey an evacuation order because they are hungry, sick, or injured,’ said Mirjana Spoljaric. ‘If an evacuation order is given, under international humanitarian law, Israel must do everything it can to ensure that civilians benefit from satisfactory conditions of housing, hygiene, safety, and access to food… These conditions are not currently being met in Gaza.’
‘This would make any evacuation not only unfeasible but also incomprehensible under the present circumstances,’ she added.
According to UN estimates, around 1 million Palestinians are in Gaza City. Thousands of residents have already left the city, which is in the northern part of the enclave where the war began after an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist organisation Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023.
