Aid workers describe Gaza as “stuff of nightmares” as Israel’s mass forced displacements cause carnage and despair

Restrictions on movement and total siege making aid operations almost impossible – Oxfam

As Gaza enters the eighth week of an Israel-imposed siege, blocking aid, vital supplies and commercial goods, Oxfam staff are describing conditions as the “stuff of nightmares”, with Israel’s mass forced displacement orders spreading terror, Oxfam said.

Israel has issued repeated forced displacement orders to clear out civilian populations from its renewed airstrikes and attacks on Gaza since 18 March, which has left about 70% of the Strip under displacement orders or “no go” zones, affecting more than 500,000 people. Many have been pushed into inhospitable, unsafe and inaccessible areas.

Since 2 March, Israel has allowed no aid or commercial goods to enter Gaza. Many humanitarian agencies have been forced to pause their operations. Oxfam and its partners have not received a single aid truck, food parcel, hygiene kit or any other essential equipment since the siege began. Oxfam’s supplies are nearly exhausted, with only a few water tanks remaining in Gaza City.

Palestinians in Gaza are now emotionally and physically exhausted after 18 months of airstrikes and ground offensives, repeated forced displacement orders and restrictions on basic services since October 7, 2023.

The recent escalations in efforts by Israel to bombard, deprive and displace the Palestinian population of Gaza, sees Oxfam and partner organizations severely restricted and struggling to provide support to civilians, who are facing starvation and relentless violence.

One Oxfam staff member, who was displaced under fire twice in one week after the forced evacuation of Rafah, said nearly everything had been destroyed. She described the sounds of gunfire at night and people crying in the street, not knowing where to go. Another Oxfam worker said the experiences were “the stuff of nightmares” – people crying for help under piles of rubble, with others desperately trying to flee with injured family members, and others facing a daily struggle to find anything to drink or eat.

Clemence Lagouardat, Oxfam Response Lead in Gaza said:

“It’s hard to explain just how terrible things are in Gaza at the moment. Our staff and partners are witnessing scenes of carnage and despair every day. People are in terror, fearing for their lives as displacement orders tell them, with little notice, to move with whatever they can carry.

“The restrictions on internal movement are also making it very difficult to carry out vital, life-saving work. With so many people displaced, the strains on dwindling resources and operational needs are massive. What little aid we have left inside Gaza is hard to get to people living in makeshift shelters and tents when travel is so dangerous.”

Mohammad Nairab, Executive Manager, Palestinian Environmental Friends Association (PEF), one of Oxfam’s partners in Gaza said:

“Since the war resumed many of our teams have been displaced. We have had to continue our work, despite the lack of safety, as countless people rely on us for water, especially during these dire times. Nothing could have prepared us for such an unprecedented war. The damage we face—both psychological and physical—is profound and cannot be easily undone.”

Oxfam says that people are struggling to find safe drinking water, with facilities bombed or unable to operate since Israel cut the last remaining electricity supplies needed to run sanitation facilities. Backup generators are of little use because fuel stores are depleted. The prices of what little food is available have skyrocketed, and many people are at risk of extreme hunger.

Lagouardat said: “We must see an end to this terror and carnage right now, with a lifting of the siege to allow urgent humanitarian aid to reach all of those in need.”

Oxfam is calling for a renewed and permanent ceasefire, the safe return of Israeli hostages and illegally detained Palestinian prisoners, and immediate and unfettered aid access at scale in Gaza. Oxfam reiterates its call for justice and accountability for all those affected. States should stop selling arms to Israel, risking complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed.

/Ends

Notes to editors:

Israel has issued many orders and directives, to people to move into areas it has declared ‘known shelters’, but these have lacked the necessary facilities outlined under international humanitarian law (IHL), which include the provision of proper accommodation, hygiene, health, safety, nutrition and commitments to ensure that families are kept together. IHL provisions on the protection of civilians also guarantee the safety of those who may not be able, or wish, to relocate.

Evacuation | How does law protect in war? – Online casebook

Customary IHL Rule 129 and Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 explicitly prohibits an occupying power from deporting or forcibly transferring members of the occupied civilian population, regardless of motive. This provision is a cornerstone of the laws of occupation; it is designed to prevent demographic changes being made by the occupying power to the occupied territory, regardless of any ‘justification’ it may provide for such changes. It underscores the principle that the rights and dignity of the civilian population must be protected, reflecting an occupying power’s obligations to ensure the welfare and security of those under its administration. There are exceptions for evacuation of civilians for their own safety, but only on a temporary basis and where adequate shelter, food, water and access to medical care are provided. This is not the case in Gaza. On 14 April, the UN confirmed in the Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Secretary General, that currently, about 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip is under displacement orders or in “no go” zones, where the Israeli authorities require humanitarian teams to coordinate their movements.

On 15 April, the UN reported that between 18 March and 14 April, the Israeli military issued at least 20 displacement orders, placing about 142.7 square kilometres, or 39 per cent of the Gaza Strip, under active displacement orders. In addition to areas placed under displacement orders, the Israeli authorities have requested the UN to coordinate and notify movements to the “no-go” zone along Gaza’s perimeter and along Wadi Gaza where Israeli forces have re-deployed since 20 March, which makes up about 50 per cent of the Gaza Strip. In total, about 69 per cent of the Gaza Strip is under active displacement orders, within the “no-go” zone or both.

At the Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary General on 16 April, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that humanitarian partners estimate that since 18 March, about half a million people have been newly displaced or uprooted once more. This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of people repeatedly displaced prior to the ceasefire.

Further testimonies from Oxfam staff in Gaza:

One Oxfam staff member recounting her own experience of being twice, in under seven days, displaced under fire from her partially destroyed home in Rafah: “During the first displacement we didn’t sleep at all from the gunfire at night. We waited for the shooting to pause so we could leave. Nine of us packed into a small, four-passenger car with children, bringing just a few pieces of paperwork. I left my brother behind, who had to follow us later. I was paralyzed with fear; I could barely feel my legs. People were crying on the street not knowing where to go. The children in my family couldn’t stop crying from fear.” She described how tanks rolled through the neighborhood. On the second day of Eid at the end of Ramadan, she said, they woke up to a new order. “Again, we were told to evacuate from the place we were sheltering in. We had to run to find another place to stay.”

Another Oxfam worker in Gaza spoke of the scenes colleagues and partners are witnessing: “Some of the experiences we hear are the stuff of nightmares – stories of people managing to get messages out from under the rubble, calling for help…which doesn’t come. People trying to move to safety, knowing there is no safety, injured as they go, calling for ambulances along the way, but ambulances can’t reach them on the impassable roads. Stories of people with no money, struggling to find something to eat, coming across small quantities of food on market stalls, priced at up to six times the normal cost. With no electricity, people are cooking over wood, which is also running out. People are resorting to burning plastic in a desperate bid to create alternative fuel. People describe the ‘new’ bombs. They speak of how earlier in the war you would hear the bombs making a noise as they travelled through the air, but now the bombs travel with lethal silence, leaving catastrophic carnage in their wake.”

“There is nowhere for us to go, nowhere that we will be safe,” said another Oxfam staff member who received news while at work that his house in Gaza City had been placed under an evacuation order. He considered the impossible decision of leaving his job to try to find a safe place for himself, his family and his elderly mother to shelter, Eventually, they decided not to evacuate, understanding that they had no guarantee of safety.

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