The Red Cross warned today of the impossibility of safely carrying out a mass evacuation of the Gaza Strip, as Israel tightens its siege of the city in preparation for a major offensive against the Palestinian Hamas.
"It is impossible to carry out a mass evacuation of the Gaza Strip safely and with dignity under current conditions," said Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Such a plan, she said, is "not only unfeasible, but also incomprehensible," she said.
Thousands of residents have already fled the city, which is located in the north of the territory and where, according to UN estimates, almost a million people live.
After nearly 23 months of war that has devastated the Gaza Strip, the evacuation of Gaza City “would lead to a massive displacement of the population that no part of the Gaza Strip could accommodate,” the ICRC president added.
Despite growing pressure from abroad and within Israel to end the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government intends to continue the offensive in the Gaza Strip, and the military has been ordered to prepare for a full-scale assault on Gaza City.
For Netanyahu and his far-right allies, the goal is to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that launched the war in October 2023, as well as to return all the hostages taken that day.
For the Israeli army, which declared Gaza City a "combat zone" yesterday, the evacuation of the city is "inevitable."
On the ground, Israeli military operations have further intensified on the outskirts of Gaza City since this morning.
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