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Southern, central Gaza ‘completely crowded’: Media office
Gaza’s Government Media Office says the Israeli army is “promoting lies and false allegations” to forcibly displace Palestinians and worsen the humanitarian situation in the enclave. In a statement, the office said the army’s push for an idea of southern Gaza having “vast empty spaces” was a “false claim that contradicts the facts on the ground”.
“The southern and central governorates of the Gaza Strip are completely crowded with more than one and a quarter million forcibly displaced people who fled the ongoing bombardment, where they live in random tents that lack the most basic equipment and do not have the minimum necessities of life,” the office said.
“The areas referred to by the occupation, whether in the Mawasi or Deir el-Balah areas, are limited lands not equipped to accommodate this massive number of people,” it added.
The office emphasised that the army’s continued forced displacement of Palestinians was a “war crime and a crime against humanity under international law”.
Al Jazeera investigation challenges Israeli claims of ’empty areas’ available for Gaza City residents
On Wednesday, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said residents of Gaza City, which the Israeli military plans to seize, will inevitably be forced out.
In a post on X, Adraee posted a map highlighting areas where residents could move to, including in central Gaza and southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi area, where there have been near-daily attacks, despite Israel designating al-Mawasi a so-called “humanitarian zone”.
However, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit Sanad showed “only 38 plots of land”, eight in southern Gaza and 30 in central areas, with a total area of no more than 7 square kilometres (2.7 square miles), noting that “hundreds of thousands of residents of the northern Gaza Strip are threatened with displacement”.
“When these plots were compared with the evacuation orders issued by the army since the resumption of military operations, it was found that 29 of the 38 plots were located within areas already subject to evacuation warnings,” Sanad revealed.
“More importantly, these plots were not, as the occupation portrayed them, ‘vast, empty areas’ ready to accommodate the displaced. Rather, they appeared to be disparate in nature, ranging from fenced private properties, to open landfills, to densely populated residential neighbourhoods, as well as areas already crowded with displaced people’s tents or used for agricultural purposes.”
According to Sanad, citing satellite imagery, “occupancy rates in some of these sites exceeded 80 percent”.
