Observation: IDF Should Bring The Thousands Who Entered Northern Gaza To The Safe Zone For Their Own Safety

Observation: IDF Should Bring The Thousands Who Entered Northern Gaza To The
Safe Zone For Their Own Safety
Dr. Aaron Lerner 2 January 2023

Here is my translation of part of a report today by Amos Harel in Haaretz:

“.The IDF has also not formulated a final position on the question of
whether the Palestinian residents in the north of the Gaza Strip, an area
where the destruction is enormous, should return to their homes in the first
instance. At the moment, there is still an IDF division (Division 99) that
divides the Gaza Strip through a corridor it occupied south of Gaza City,
along the Gaza River . But despite the military presence there, the return
of thousands of Palestinian citizens to the destroyed neighborhoods and
refugee camps in the north is evident. In practice, the IDF does not fully
control this and it is likely that Hamas members without uniforms or visible
weapons move among the citizens. This happens mainly in areas where the IDF
has diluted its presence in the north of the Gaza Strip.”

The phrase “return to their homes” is deceptive as indicated in the same
paragraph by the description of where these “homes” are: “destroyed
neighborhoods and refugee camps”.

No water. No sanitation. No services. Nothing.

Nothing to go to.

Only danger.

The humanitarian thing to do is to bring these people back the handful of
kilometers distance to the safety of the “safe areas” south of Wadi Gaza.

Any serious program to make these “destroyed neighborhoods and refugee
camps” habitable again cannot be effectively implemented with thousands of
people randomly distributed in structurally dangerous buildings which need
to be razed or even tents on small patches of flattened rubble.

So if you truly care about facilitating a ‘day after,’ where Gazans can
return to decent housing north of Wadi Gaza, you support an ongoing
humanitarian IDF mission to keep the area north of Wadi Gaza clear of
civilians until the neighborhoods can be rebuilt
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