UNRWA Says There Is 'Nowhere to Go' as Israel Orders Evacuation of Gaza Safe Zones

Following a series of evacuation orders this week, Israeli forces issued another on Friday for areas in central and southern Gaza, including "safe zones," leaving Palestinian families gripped with fear and with "nowhere to go," according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Israel's Arabic spokesperson announced on social media that people in six neighborhood blocks in various towns, several of which were part of a proclaimed humanitarian zone, must "immediately move," leading to a scramble of evacuations in those areas.

"Once again, fear spreads as families have nowhere to go," UNRWA wrote on social media. "People remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale."

Friday's evacuation orders were for areas in eastern Deir el-Balah, al-Qarara, al-Mawasi, al-Jalaa, Hamad City, and Nasser, Al Jazeerareported.

An Israeli military strike on al-Mawasi, previously a humanitarian zone though long the target of Israeli strikes, killed four Palestinians including three children, the news outlet reported on Friday.

The Israeli army said Hamas had used the areas to fire mortar and rocket attacks, and explained that it had issued warning flyers and text message alerts to reduce the impact on the Palestinian civilian population, according toReuters.

Bombings and evacuations have continued this week—at least 80 Palestinians were killed in a strike on a school-turned-shelter on Sunday—even as peace talks proceeded in Doha, Qatar. A two-day session of talks finished Friday, with the United States, Egypt, and Qatar saying progress was made and they hoped to seal a deal between Israel and Hamas next week. Hamas didn't directly participate in this week's talks because the militant Palestinian group said Israel had added new demands to a proposal it had already agreed to in principle.

The death toll of Palestinians during the 10-month war, based on figures from Gaza's health ministry, reached 40,000 this week—what the U.N. called a "dark milestone."

"Most of the dead are women and children," U.N. rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement. "This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war."

"On average, about 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza over the past 10 months," he added, saying the "scale of the Israeli military's destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship [is] deeply shocking."

Türk said that both Israel and armed Palestinian groups including Hamas had committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. The armed Palestinian groups killed more than 1,100 Israelis in a shocking and horrifying massacre in southern Israel on October 7 in which they also took some 250 hostages.

Israel's sustained assault on Gaza over the last 10 months has not only killed a disproportionate number of children but also displaced most of those who've survived—and separated many from their families.

A report released Friday by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) documents the scale of the separation crisis and its psychological toll on unaccompanied children. UNICEF estimates that roughly 17,000 Gazan children are unaccompanied, but the IRC warns that the real figure may be much higher.

Unaccompanied youth are at risk of labor exploitation, starvation, and mental health problems that can plague them for the rest of their lives. Gazan children, shocked by the war, are "clinging to others during loud sounds, wetting the bed, having nightmares, and are wanting to sleep under the bed to feel secure," the report says.

The Associated Pressreported Tuesday that Israeli strikes were leaving "children without parents and parents without children," and has previously reported that the war has wiped out entire Palestinian extended families.

Israeli violence against Palestinians has not been restricted to Gaza. Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank town of Jit on Thursday night, setting fire to cars and houses, killing one Palestinian man and seriously injuring another. Jack Lew, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he was "appalled" by the attack and the perpetrators should be held accountable, but Israeli human rights group B'Tselem responded on social media by saying that the Israeli state and its leadership should be held accountable.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Wednesday reported that it had recorded about 1,250 settler attacks on Palestinians since October 7. The settlements are illegal under international law, according to the International Court of Justice.

The push for a peace deal is aimed not just at ending the carnage in Gaza and defusing West Bank tensions but also preventing a wider war in the Middle East. Israel is bracing for retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah after it conducted assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Tehran and Beirut in late July.