‘Desperate reality’ in Gaza’s al-Mawasi
A sea of makeshift tents fills the sandy, barren landscape. Crammed into just 9sq km (3.5sq miles), tens of thousands of people have used fragile nylon and plastic sheaths to build shelters that do little to protect them from the harsh elements.
The intensification of air raids and ground activities by the Israeli military in Gaza City has been pushing more and more families to flee to southern Gaza, especially al-Mawasi.
There are no official aid distribution centres, toilets, or even water lines to provide services to families. Queues of young women, children, and men line up in front of the local soup kitchen to receive soup or lentils to survive.
It’s a desperate reality. Families are told to come here, but are turning back because there are no spaces left for them to ensure a dignified life, which has been stripped away by Israel’s repeated evacuation orders and mass bombing.
UN seeks better water access in ‘barren and crowded’ al-Mawasi
An official with the UN’s children agency at the so-called “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi has told Al Jazeera that “far more needs to happen” to support the thousands of displaced families who have sought shelter under “such difficult circumstances”.
In less than a month, more than 70,000 people have made the arduous journey from northern to southern Gaza following Israel’s move to forcibly evacuate Palestinians from “combat zones”, according to UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram.
“This is already an incredibly crowded area, with hundreds of thousands of people here, with not enough services or supplies to meet their needs – let alone the influx of people coming from the north,” Ingram said of al-Mawasi.
A water pipeline runs along the western side of the encampment, but limited access to the east – where new families are now arriving – has forced women to walk for hours to fill a single jerrycan of water that has to last all week, the official added.
The UN is looking to transport water via trucks to the “really barren” eastern settlement area, Ingram said.
Israeli drone attack kills child in Gaza City
Israeli drone fire has killed a child and wounded others in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, report our colleagues on the ground, quoting a source at the nearby al-Ahli Hospital.
In central Gaza’s Nuseirat, a separate drone attack also killed a man, our colleagues report.
Displaced Palestinians ‘smelling grief and death’ in al-Mawasi
Displaced Palestinians living in the crowded al-Mawasi encampment fear being forced further south to the Egyptian border, even as they deal with deplorable living conditions.
As we’ve been reporting, hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into makeshift tents in the so-called “humanitarian zone”, which lacks water access and sanitation, among others.
“This is not life,” Shade al-Wawi, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera from al-Mawasi. “We cannot do it any more”. “We are smelling dust, and with it, smelling grief and death,” he said.
Before he fled to al-Mawasi, al-Wawi’s home was flattened to the ground for the second time since 2004. But more concerning, he told Al Jazeera, is the prospect of being pushed out of the encampment.
“We are no longer able even to stay here, and we’ll be forced to move south toward the Egyptian border … The entire world is not listening, or even trying to do anything,” al-Wawi said. “We are not heard, we are not seen, we are not living, without any future – our God is our only shield.”
