Humanitarian organizations denounce that Israel is using these evacuation orders and starvation as weapons to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Not temporary movements, but a broader plan to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable. A new report by Euro-Med Monitor, which deals with the use of starvation as a weapon, states: “Each of these orders – we have analyzed all of them – was given without any military necessity.”
“These are war zones and returning there puts your safety at risk.” With these words, yesterday the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Another one, which further expands the red zone. Two days earlier it had done the same thing, again in the south, in Khan Younis. Thus, while the army continues to call entire areas “war zones”, tens of thousands of people are being forced to abandon the place where they are and march into the unknown. Since the beginning of the year, Israel has issued 40 new evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip, which are added to hundreds of others given since the start of the military offensive in late 2023 and which have repeatedly forced a large part of the population to leave. The army claims that these orders serve to allow civilians to leave the fighting zones and that anyone staying there is considered a fighter.
But humanitarian organizations denounce that Israel is using these evacuation orders and starvation as weapons to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Not temporary movements, but a broader plan to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable. A new report by Euro-Med Monitor, which deals with the use of starvation as a weapon, states: “Each of these orders – we have analyzed them all – was given without any military necessity.” This shows that Israel is no longer trying to justify its actions to the international community and that the displacement itself has become a declared goal, part of a deliberate policy of systematic eradication.
In the first 45 days after the ceasefire broke down in mid-March, the Israeli army changed its map of buffer zones, or “neutral zones,” defining as unusable approximately 70% of Gaza’s territory, now called war zones, and pushing the population into increasingly narrow and uninhabitable spaces. This map of “no-go zones” makes anyone who approaches it at risk of being hit. Meanwhile, the expansion of these buffer zones has isolated hundreds of thousands of people from aid. Yaakov Garb, a professor at Ben-Gurion University, has analyzed maps published by the army, which show territorial changes in Gaza during a year and a half of war. “Israel initially called this a ‘buffer zone’ and justified it as a need for protection. But in fact it is a one-kilometer-wide strip that separates all contact with Israel. Now, what is happening? It is no longer a buffer zone. It is an instrument of cleansing and restriction. They are gradually blocking and restricting the Palestinian population to three large blocks: the northern area, the central area and Rafah, which was once a humanitarian zone, now almost impossible to cross. A gap is being created. It is an ethnic pattern of emptying the territory, under total military control. What is happening is a systematic urban destruction. It is no longer a question of a protection instrument, but of geo-demographic engineering.”
At his home in Haifa, he shows off the computer with the maps he has built for his latest reports and studies, which link these displacements to long-term strategic objectives.
Evacuation orders and the creation of a “humanitarian zone” are now closely linked to the management of humanitarian aid. The recent report “The Israeli/American/Ghf ‘aid distribution’ compounds in Gaza”, which includes an analysis of the location, context and internal structure of the aid distribution centers, states that the planning of these zones is not guided by humanitarian goals, but is a response to Israel’s military strategies and tactics.
The positioning of the four main centers is designed to control and confine the population of Gaza. For example, one center is located in the central part of the Gaza Strip, under the Netzarim Corridor, and the other southwest of Rafah. These are restricted access areas that do not take into account the needs of the population. They are surrounded by fences, watchtowers, and designed to keep people under strict military control. As Professor Garb says: “It is not a space for distribution, but a zone that will exert force and fear on hungry people.” According to the report, the distribution of aid has turned from a humanitarian model to a military model of control and punishment. There have been numerous massacres in these so-called “humanitarian” zones: last Monday at least 30 people were killed while trying to get food; on Tuesday, according to doctors at Nasser Hospital, over 50 people were killed and hundreds more were injured.
“We are talking about hungry, scared people,” says Professor Garb. “All it takes is one unexpected event and everything turns into panic. The soldiers are trained to shoot, not to help.” Moreover, recent footage shows the areas being fenced off as if they were animal pens: “Put the food in, remove the personnel, and the animals will come in on their own, followed by snipers.”
It is not simply a logistical failure, but a planned strategy to use hunger as a weapon, through the creation of infrastructures that divide, isolate and control the movement of Palestinian civilians. The humanitarian system has become a geo-demographic instrument for forced displacement. A report by the Haaretz newspaper estimates that more than 2 million Gazans have been forced to crowd into an area that represents only 30% of the territory. In the devastated Shuja’iyya neighborhood, there are more than 15.000 people sheltered in inhumane conditions. Dhua Hassan, from the Shejaia camp in Gaza, testifies: “Either we have to choose to die of hunger or from the bombs.” Meanwhile, not even the voices of children are heard. Only the constant noise of drones is heard.
