In scenes that resembled a "second Nakba", tens of thousands of Palestinians in the northern half of the Gaza Strip - especially from Gaza City - were forced to flee to the south amid a ground offensive by Israeli forces.
Israeli authorities had ordered evacuation to avoid getting trapped in the ongoing violence. Nevertheless, there has not been a single region in the besieged coastal enclave that has been spared from hostilities, as Israel's military campaign enters its second month.
With no secure refuge available to the people of Gaza, they find themselves relying on divine providence. The Palestinian death toll since 7 October rose to 10,812 today, of which 4,412 were children. The extent of the loss of life has been described as “hard to fathom” by the UN's health agency in Geneva.
