The exodus in the Middle East has biblical meaning. Jews, Christians and Muslims have suffered from it throughout history, and after that of the dead, there is no more powerful image in the region than that of families driven from their homes, carrying everything they can, on their way to a uncertain and precarious destiny.
If the Middle East today continues to be the most turbulent region in the world, it is largely due to the forced displacement, between 1947 and 1949, of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel. An important part of these people settled in Gaza, in refugee camps such as Jabalia and Beach Camp.
80% of the population of Gaza descend from those first refugees. For this reason, the message that more than a million citizens received on their mobile phones at two in the morning on Friday had the weight of a curse rather than a help.
“Civilians of Gaza City – said the note from the army – evacuate to the south for your safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from the terrorists of Hamas, who are using you as human shields”.
The deadline was 24 hours, but later the Israeli army admitted that “it will take time”, implying that those on the way will be safe from the bombs.
However, only a few thousand people heeded the order, which also rained from the sky in the form of flying leaves. Most chose to stay at home. Some because they prefer to defy death rather than continue to carry the stigma of being a refugee and others because they are simply too old, have no way to move, sympathize with Hamas or fear angering them.
The Islamists have asked the population of Gaza not to heed the evacuation notice, not to be victims of Israel’s “psychological war”, but it is clear that it needs them to stop the announced land invasion. They are human shields and always have been.
Hamas would not have survived without them. It is many houses and rooftops that he uses to launch the rockets that, even today, a week after the start of the war, continue to fall on Israel.
In Gaza there is only one road that goes south and it is badly damaged by the bombing. Crossing the wadi Gaza, the dry river and the valley that divides the strip in two means dodging the ruins of destroyed buildings and daring to walk for several hours.
The little gas that is left is in the vehicles of the wealthiest families, which, moreover, have had underground garages to store them. The most vulnerable, as always, are left behind, and these are the vast majority.
The UN has asked Israel to reconsider the evacuation order because it will have “devastating humanitarian consequences”. There are already 400,000 homeless people and there is nothing in the south to accommodate those arriving from Gaza City, Jabaliya and Beach Camp, among other towns.
The exodus is aggravated by the lack of water, food and electricity, in addition to the difficulty of transporting the wounded. There are more than 7,300, according to the last count, and the dead exceed 1,800.
The WHO states that mobilization is equivalent to “a death sentence” for the injured.
Egypt has asked friendly countries to send urgent aid to stop the coup anyway. From Al-Arix airport, he plans to bring it into Gaza through the Rafah border, but the Israeli air force has attacked it twice and it is useless. Even if it wasn’t, Israel has warned it won’t open any humanitarian corridors or restore water and electricity services until Hamas releases the 150 hostages it took a week ago, when it invaded Israel and killed more than 1,300 people who lived in the vicinity of Gaza.
The country remains shocked by this unprecedented tragedy and support for the military strategy is unwavering. The solidarity mobilization of the population is also exemplary. Volunteers in dozens of organizations and restaurants prepare rations for the soldiers and bring them to the bases.
The Ministry of Defense has mobilized 360,000 reservists in a few days and cannot feed them all. A few days ago, the Ha’achin pizzeria in Tel-Aviv prepared 2,000 rations, packed them and brought them to a base. When they arrived, the guard stopped them, took a ration and took it to the rabbi of the detachment for approval. This man, who no doubt emerged from the Old Testament, refused food because he was not kaixer.
The story was told to me by another rabbi, sad because the most intransigent erect walls of delusion. “The logical thing – he told me – would have been to allow each soldier to decide whether he wanted the pizza or not, but the rabbi imposed his judgment on young people called to defend the country by a State that not only cannot feed them, but who has broken the social contract by which he had pledged to protect them”.
The decision to invade has been made, but the order to execute it is missing. The US has asked Israel to respect “the rules of war”, which means protecting the civilian population when troops enter. However, warning the population to leave their homes in order not to die in the fire is a minimum protection that, by itself, does not guarantee life either. That is why so many citizens of Gaza have preferred not to move from their homes. From Moscow, Putin yesterday compared the situation to the Nazi siege that Leningrad suffered during the Second World War.
The war also punishes reporters and has claimed the lives of eight journalists in Gaza, where they were covering the situation in the enclave. Another one, from Reuters, died yesterday in southern Lebanon, and five others were injured by Israeli artillery.
