Odd Calls Emerge from Gaza
They say to go home, but what does that mean when entire neighborhoods have been leveled?
Many people in Gaza have reported that they received odd phone calls. As of now, no one can confirm the source of these calls. These calls tell Palestinians who have been displaced to the south of Gaza to return to the north. They are different from prior evacuation calls in that they are telling people in Gaza to go “home” rather than to evacuate to another “safe” zone that will in all likelihood be bombed again.
These calls are thought to be a trap set by Israeli forces due to a pattern in which the Israeli military targets evacuees. Ever since the genocide started, the IOF has killed many Palestinians through the indiscriminate firing of weapons in population-dense areas, including in refugee camps. As such, many people do not trust these calls to return to their homes.
In addition to that, there is no guarantee that these people would even have homes to return to. Images from Planet Labs PBC as well as footage from journalists on the ground show the scale of the sheer devastation in Gaza. Hospitals, mosques, churches, and houses have been reduced to unrecognizable piles of rubble trapping estimated thousands of people beneath them.
North Gaza is also in stage 5 food insecurity (famine) which is the most severe stage of food insecurity according to the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) scale of 1–5. IPC classifications can be used for a variety of places from individual households to regions of various countries. Other areas of Gaza such as Rafah and Deir al-Belah are at stage 4.
The IPC considers an area to be in famine when more than 20% of households face food insecurity and more than 30% of children face acute malnutrition, and more than two people of any age or four children per 10,000 people die of starvation or disease per day. While they don’t officially declare famine, they use these metrics to measure food insecurity in a variety of countries and territories.
While food in aid trucks rots in the sun due to efforts to block aid to the region, the people resort to abnormal activities such as eating weeds, animal food, and expired canned goods. Although many people on the ground report that fights over food and water are still rare despite the catastrophic circumstances, stampedes for these resources have killed people.
All in all, many people in Gaza do not want to return to their homes in the North when they are suspicious of calls to do so. Not only that, but even if there was no guarantee that they would be bombed, there’s no guarantee that these people would even homes to return to. An article from UN news has said that everything that makes homes functional from hospitals and schools to cultural centers have been leveled. This means that even a “safe” return to North Gaza would be an example of immeasurable cruelty.
