Thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza on November 8, traversing miles on foot through the war-torn region as Israel intensified its ground and air campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip.
Groups of people, including women, children, the elderly, and disabled individuals, navigated Salah Eddin Street—one of Gaza’s main north-south highways—following an evacuation corridor declared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Israeli government claimed that 50,000 Gazans utilized the evacuation corridor on Wednesday, a number not independently verified but reportedly larger than the previous day.
This marked the fifth consecutive day of IDF’s evacuation windows, with an increasing number of people heading south each day. According to the UN, 2,000 people fled south on November 5, Sunday, escalating to 15,000 on Tuesday.
Evacuees, forced to leave due to heavy shelling, resorted to unconventional transportation methods like donkey carts due to a lack of cars, fuel, and drinking water.
Many of those on the roads, walking in family groups or with neighbors, said they left as the north has been without running water and food for weeks.
“We don’t know where we’re going,” Naseem al-Dada, carrying his children, said. “We’re heading south as they told us to do. We are walking and we don’t know where we’ll go. To the makeshift schools? To sleep on the streets. To sleep at someone’s house? God only knows,” he told BBC.
“Our life is tragic,” said Amira al-Sakani, who fled Gaza City clutching one of her toddlers. “We don’t want war. We want peace,” she said.
As Israel escalated its strikes in Gaza after the October 7 attacks that claimed 1,400 lives in Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asserted that IDF troops were at the “heart of Gaza City,” targeting Hamas infrastructure and commanders.
“Gaza 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,” Gallant said. “We continue to dismantle this capability.”
A resident in southern Gaza described living through “horrifying days,” emphasizing the difficulty of escaping airstrikes and the absence of safe places.
“This war left nothing safe – 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.”
Nakba of 2023
Families, forced to leave due to heavy shelling, recounted leaving everything behind as they fled, facing challenges such as restricted movement and the constant threat of bombardment. Evacuees resorted to unconventional transportation methods like donkey carts due to a lack of cars, fuel, and drinking water.
The forced displacement in Gaza, affecting a population primarily composed of refugees whose parents or grandparents were expelled from their homes and barred from returning during the establishment of Israel in 1948, mostly called the Nakba, has sparked a distressing sense of déjà vu.
“It felt like the Nakba [catastrophe] of 2023,” Baraa, a 16-year-old girl said, describing walking amidst destruction, dead bodies, and encounters with Israeli forces instructing people to strip and discard belongings.
“We 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.”
Key facts
- More than 10,800 Palestinians, including more than 4,400 children, have been killed in Gaza since October 8.
- An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes since the Israeli military began bombing Gaza Strip.
- Israel began striking Gaza in retaliation for a surprise attack by Hamas attacks on October 7, which saw 1,400 people killed and more than 200 taken hostage.
- The U.S. says that Israel will begin four-hour military pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day to allow civilians to flee.
- UN agencies and humanitarian organizations have called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and the swift entry of food, water, medicine and fuel into Gaza.