Area offers desperate families in Gaza relative safety but conditions are dire and threat of Israeli attacks remain
Displaced Palestinians in makeshift tents in al-Mawasi. The area was declared a safe zone by the Israeli military but has come under numerous attacks.Displaced Palestinians in makeshift tents in al-Mawasi. The area was declared a safe zone by the Israeli military but has come under numerous attacks.
“We were living on rice and beans and grass. My eldest son was gone. The situation was catastrophic … We saw things that we never imagined we would ever see,” she said.Salman and her surviving children headed south, making their way by foot and cart through the rubble and runs of central Gaza to al-Mawasi, a 16sq km strip of mainly coast and dunes that was five months ago barren and is now home to 380,000 people, aid agencies say.
But any safety in al-Mawasi is only relative to the rest of the territory, where more than 32,000 have died, mostly women and children, during the relentless Israeli offensive, according to local health authorities. The ceasefire resolution passed at the United Nations on Monday has reassured few in either al-Mawasi or Rafah. Both have been repeatedly hit by Israeli airstrikes and artillery in recent weeks and drones buzz overhead incessantly, day and night. “You lie half asleep at 3am and feel like you are in a coffin,” said one aid worker in Rafah.“Hamas keeps putting Gazans in the line of fire.
The official said al-Mawasi was “a bit less crowded than a few weeks ago” but aid agencies are bracing for “more people moving here in the event of a Rafah operation. “As mayor, my foremost challenge lies in inadequate logistics, a shortage of essential equipment, widespread destruction, and that we can’t import heavy or necessary equipment through the crossings due to restrictions.”Al-Mawasi has several advantages: its fine soil makes it impossible to dig the tunnels that Hamas has built underneath the rest of Gaza and there are no high-rise buildings. Both factors make the area safer, say those who have sought out the zone.
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