Israeli military preparing to expel Gaza City residents as baby in tent among those killed in latest attacks
Military claims it is displacing population ‘to ensure their safety’ even as health officials report deadly attacks on previously designated safe zones
The Israeli military will begin preparing for the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City, it said on Saturday, as health officials said it had killed at least 40 people including a baby in a tent and people seeking aid in its latest attacks.
The announcement came days after Israel said it intended to launch a new offensive to seize control of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban centre, in a plan that raised international alarm. The Israeli offensive has already displaced most of the population, killed tens of thousands of civilians and created a famine.
Gaza residents would be provided with tents and other shelter equipment starting from Sunday ahead of relocating them from combat zones to the south of the enclave “to ensure their safety,” the Israeli military claimed on Saturday. It did not say when the mass displacement would begin.
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it had declared as safe zones. On Saturday a baby girl and her parents were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent in al-Muwasi, previously designated a humanitarian zone by Israel, in southern Gaza, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said.
“Two and a half months, what has she done?” her neighbour Fathi Shubeir asked. “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”
Israel’s military said it couldn’t comment on the strike without more details.
Al-Muwasi is now one of the most heavily populated areas in Gaza after Israel pushed people into the desolate area. But prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said Israel planned to widen its coming military offensive to include the area, along with Gaza City and “central camps” – an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza.
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