On Sunday, July 7, the Israeli army ordered residents of three neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City to immediately evacuate toward the west, ahead of a new ground invasion. Thousands of displaced families abandoned their shelters and searched desperately for a place to stay the night in the city’s western neighborhoods. Within hours, however, Israeli forces attacked those very areas.
The evacuation order came less than two weeks after Israeli forces reinvaded the Shuja’iya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. Amid continuing displacement and ground incursions in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, and bombing throughout the Strip — including in designated “safe zones” — there is nowhere for Palestinians to find reprieve from Israel’s onslaught.
That’s been their move every step of the way. Tell the people to go somewhere and say they’ll be safe there, then kill them.
The latest attacks are more vile. Instead of an occasional terror bombing on refugee camps Israel now directly attacks people while they are out in the open after evacuating. In the areas they are telling them to go.
That’s the exact same thing Israel did when it told Palestinians to move to Rafah.
It’s a feature, not a bug, and they’ve used it the whole time.