No Safe Place, Nowhere to Go in Gaza: UN Humanitarian Team Leader
Gemma Connell, stationed in Gaza for several weeks, likened the situation to a "human chess board," with thousands displaced more than once and finding no guaranteed safety in their destinations.
Connell's observations paint a grim picture.
"People were heading south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans and in trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe," she said during her visit to Deir Al Balah in central Gaza.
Connell said the extreme congestion in Rafah left many without a clear refuge.
"I've spoken to many people," she said.
"There's so little space left here in Rafah that people just don't know where they will go, and it really feels like people being moved around a human chessboard because there's an evacuation order somewhere.
"People flee that area into another area. But they're not safe there."
She related the tragic death of a boy, 9, named Ahmed in Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah, which was a supposed safe area.
"He was not in an area under an evacuation order," Connell said.
"He was in an area that was supposed to be safe. There is no safe place in Gaza."
She said new air strikes took place when she was at the hospital and she saw the wounded being brought in.
Israeli attacks have kept intensifying, with Palestinian health officials reporting more than 100 deaths in recent air strikes in central and southern Gaza, raising the death toll to nearly 20,700.
Source: thenationalnews.com
