The Israeli army has issued 13 evacuation orders in August alone for different areas in the Gaza Strip, greatly reducing the size of the humanitarian zone it declared from the onset of the conflicts.
The threat of violence has compelled displaced Palestinians into ever-tighter confines within the besieged enclave.
Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been forced to abandon their homes following the latest evacuation order issued Sunday for Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip.
Omar Al-Atla's family, now homeless, has sought refuge on a city beach under a threadbare tent.
"We were displaced from Gaza City to Al Nuseirat, then to Rafah, then to Hamad, and now we're here. We've been displaced four times. The last one was the hardest because we fled without our belongings after tanks attacked us. Now we have nowhere to go but the sea," he said.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip has been subject to evacuation orders since October last year while an estimated 90 percent of Gaza's 2.1 million residents have been displaced more than once.
While the Israeli military defends the forced evacuations on military grounds, the damage to civilians is catastrophic. With more shelters rendered unusable, 1.9 million Palestinians face homelessness.
"The evacuation orders have led to severe overcrowding of civilians in a narrow strip of land. The safe humanitarian zone in Deir al-Balah Governorate has shrunk to 15 square kilometers, resulting in the displacement of 100,000 people and 20 shelters going out of service," said Diab Al-Jarou, mayor of Deir al-Balah.
The evacuations come at a time when international mediators are struggling to resolve differences between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire agreement that would stop the fighting in Gaza, and bring about an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Israel's evacuation orders leave more Palestinians homeless
