Humanitarian team leader describes ‘human chessboard’ in which thousands of people, already displaced many times, are on the run again amid widening Israeli strikes
Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated territory, a UN humanitarian team leader has said.
Gemma Connell, deployed in Gaza for several weeks now, described what she called a “human chessboard” in which thousands of people – displaced many times already – are on the run again and there is no guarantee a destination will be safe, Reuters reports.
People were heading up south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans and in trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe.
I’ve spoken to many people. 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.
