The Israeli military has designated just one area of the Gaza Strip as a “humanitarian zone” for displaced people — and that area keeps shrinking.
In the latest downsizing, the military on Saturday ordered the evacuation of two more parts of central Gaza that had been part of the humanitarian zone. Similar orders have forced more than 200,000 Palestinians to relocate over the last week alone, according to the United Nations.
A New York Times analysis of the latest orders showed that the zone has shrunk by more than a fifth in recent weeks, going from encompassing nearly 17 percent of the Gaza Strip to 13 percent now. Maps and analysis of satellite imagery show that the zone is already overcrowded, frequently damaged by strikes and lacking sufficient medical services.
The Israeli military has said its recent evacuations and operations have targeted a renewed Hamas insurgency, and it accused Hamas of launching rockets from the areas that came under the latest evacuation order on Sunday.
But the repeated redrawing of the zone’s borders is one more burden among many on Gaza’s 2.2 million people.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, said on Sunday that evacuation orders had affected “almost everyone in Gaza,” adding that many had been forced to flee once a month since the war began in October.
