Red Cross: Gaza City Evacuation ‘Unsafe and Impossible’ Amid Escalating Assault
The head of the Red Cross has warned that a mass evacuation of Gaza City would be both unsafe and unworkable, as Israel presses ahead with plans to seize control of the enclave.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said on Saturday that “it is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions.”
She cautioned that forcing people out would trigger a wave of displacement that the rest of the Gaza Strip—crippled by shortages of food, medicine, and shelter—cannot absorb. Many residents, she added, are too sick, hungry, or injured to move.
Israel has urged civilians to head south as its military campaign intensifies, saying it is working to balance humanitarian efforts with operations aimed at destroying Hamas. But Spoljaric stressed that international law obliges Israel to guarantee safety, shelter, and food for civilians before any evacuation order can be enforced—conditions she said “cannot currently be met in Gaza.”
“The idea of a safe evacuation is not just unfeasible—it is incomprehensible under the present circumstances,” she said.
The war began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 assault on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and led to the taking of some 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Since then, more than 63,000 Palestinians—mostly civilians—have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave.
