Thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza on Wednesday, traveling miles on foot through the battered enclave in a growing exodus prompted by Israel\u2019s intensified ground and air campaign. <\/p>\n
Streams of people \u2013\u00a0women, children, the elderly and disabled \u2013\u00a0made their way down Salah\u00a0Eddin Street, one of the two north-south highways in Gaza, along an evacuation corridor announced by the Israel Defense Forces. <\/p>\n
One teenage girl compared the mass movement to the \u201cNakba,\u201d or catastrophe, the Arabic term for the expulsion of Palestinians from their towns during the founding of Israel. <\/p>\n
It was the fifth day in a row that the IDF opened an evacuation window, and numbers of people fleeing south have increased each day. <\/p>\n
Israel has been ramping up its offensive inside Gaza, following the October 7 attacks that left 1,400 people in Israel dead. <\/p>\n
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed Tuesday that IDF troops were at the \u201cheart of Gaza City\u201d and targeting Hamas infrastructure and commanders there. It is unclear where exactly Israel is fighting. <\/p>\n
\u201cGaza is the biggest terror stronghold that mankind has ever built. This whole city is one big terror base. Underground, they have kilometers of tunnels connecting to hospitals and schools,\u201d\u00a0Gallant\u00a0said. \u201cWe\u00a0continue to dismantle this capability.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF has been bombarding Gaza for weeks, saying it hit 14,000 terrorist targets in the densely packed territory. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis war left nothing safe \u2013 not churches, not mosques or anything. Today, they dropped the leaflet ordering us to leave to the alleged safe area. Now we are beyond this area of Wadi Gaza, and we are still hearing bombardments. There is no safe place in Gaza.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seven families. All of our houses are gone. Nothing is left. We couldn\u2019t take anything \u2013\u00a0no clothes, no water, nothing. The way here was very difficult. If something falls, you are not allowed to pick it up. You are not allowed to slow down. Dead bodies everywhere.\u201d <\/p>\n
Baraa, a 16-year-old girl, said that she had been walking for a long time. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like the Nakba [catastrophe] of 2023,\u201d she said, using the Arabic term for the expulsion of Palestinians from their towns during the founding of Israel. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe walked by people who were ripped to parts, dead bodies. We walked beside tanks. The Israelis called us, and they were asking people to take off their clothes and throw their belongings. Children were very tired because there was no water.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe came under heavy shelling and had no choice but to leave our area,\u201d Hani Bakhit said. \u201cWe ended up using donkey carts because there were no cars, fuel, or drinking water available. Nothing is left for us. They forced us to leave by cutting off all available resources,\u201d he said, referring to Israeli forces. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who have nothing to do with the resistance are being bombed and so they are fleeing to the south,\u201d Khader Hamad said. \u201cThey are all children, newborns, women.\u201d <\/p>\n
People carried few possessions in the arms or on their backs. Some sat on carts drawn by donkeys. On Tuesday, some could be seen carrying white flags and holding aloft identity documents. <\/p>\n
\u201cDonkey carts are the only means of transportation left,\u201d Abu Ida said. \u201cThere is no solar power or fuel left for cars, but also those who have cars are afraid to use them. I cannot walk because I have diabetes, there\u2019s no way I can walk on my feet.\u201d <\/p>\n
A woman who did not provide her name said \u201cwe are being destroyed.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNo one cares about us. Maybe we are safe now, but I\u2019m not sure about those who are still behind. I don\u2019t know where my family is. My siblings are behind me. Out of fear, I couldn\u2019t look behind. Not right, not left. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe came from Al Shifa [Hospital], and we saw death on the way. Dead bodies, destruction everywhere.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza on Wednesday, traveling miles on foot through the battered enclave in a growing exodus prompted by Israel\u2019s intensified ground and air campaign. Streams of people \u2013\u00a0women, children, the elderly and disabled \u2013\u00a0made their way down Salah\u00a0Eddin Street, one of the two north-south highways in Gaza, along an evacuation corridor <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}