CNN
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A CNN video shot on Wednesday shows thousands of people once again on the run after the Israel Defense Forces issued renewed evacuation orders for parts of the southern Gaza Strip.
People left the areas east of Deir al-Balah on foot or in donkey carts. Some were travelling in private cars loaded with their belongings, including mattresses and blankets, water and gas cylinders. The streets appear to be littered with leaflets dropped by the Israeli army repeating the evacuation order.
A CNN analysis shows that Israeli forces have reduced the humanitarian zone in Gaza by 38 percent in the last month, with evacuation orders issued on July 22 and 27 and August 16 and 21.
Its area now amounts to 39 square kilometers, or just over 10 percent of Gaza’s total area.
During the recent evacuation, people flocked to a UN food aid truck and carried away small bags of relief supplies.
One of the refugees, Muhammad Awad, told CNN: “Since this morning there have been bombings, shootings and quadcopter attacks in the east of Deir al-Balah, so we are forced to flee. People are walking into the unknown. They have no idea. There was an order asking people to evacuate.”
A woman named Um Alaa, sitting on a cart, said it was the fourth time she had been evacuated since October last year. “We don’t know where to go. We will look for a place far away from this dangerous place. All of Gaza has become dangerous.”
Some people panicked about what might happen next.
An elderly man said: “There are no places left for us to go. There was only Deir al-Balah, and now they are demanding that we leave Deir al-Balah. I fear that tomorrow they will lock us all up on the coast of Deir al-Balah and then exterminate us all.”
“After so many displacements, we no longer have the strength to evacuate again.”
Um Ismail, a woman with young children, said people were defenseless.
“Why are they fighting us? We are not Hamas, we are just people staying in their homes. They have expelled us not once, but ten times. Why? What have we done?”
A woman in the back seat of a car shouted: “If you want to know what is happening, ask Hamas and the Israelis if you want to know what is happening to us.”
Her family said it was their second displacement. For a few, it was the first time they had to move since the conflict began.
One man cried as he drove a car full of women and children. “I have no idea where we are going. Wherever we can stay. God help us. This is the first time I have been displaced.”
But for Umm Said, it was the seventh move in as many months.
“I don’t know where I’m going. They told us to leave and we left. We have no idea… Every time we find a place and settle down, they tell us to go back. And here we are. I took some flour for the children, what else can I take?”
Abu Muhammad Hajjaj, a resident of Gaza city, was displaced from the Shujaiya neighborhood.
“We came here to our relatives in Deir al-Balah. Today they asked us to evacuate. We have no means, we don’t even have a tent to live in. We have no money to pay for a car. We don’t know where to go,” he told CNN.
“People cry and complain about everything: diseases, hunger, poverty, poor hygiene, lack of medicine. You look all over Gaza for paracetamol for headaches and you can’t find it.”
Hajjaj added: “Find a solution for us. We cannot live like this. Where are the international organizations, where is the Security Council, where is the UN?”
“We have no money. We have no tents. We have nothing. We don’t live in our own houses. We are on the streets. They can’t keep telling us to evacuate here and there. You can’t live like that.”
