Israel has paired its attack on the southern Gaza Strip with an online map that divides the enclave into hundreds of zones in response to growing pressure to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians. The map, according to Israel, will send Palestinians to safe places away from its conflict with Hamas.
Nonetheless, Gazans and foreign relief organizations have mocked this grid-based map. They claim that because of the sporadic internet and energy service, many people inside the densely populated strip will not be able to access the complicated system.
Furthermore, nowhere in this brutally bombed and besieged area is safe, according to Palestinians and foreign observers of Israel's aerial and ground assault. This is true even in the absence of a map. "The communications are so poor that the map cannot be used," "There is no safe place."
But some of these international organizations have disagreed. The U.N. Palestinian relief agency's director of communications, Juliette Touma, flatly rejected the premise of Israel's map when asked if it could be useful.
"Everywhere in the Gaza Strip is unsafe, even in the south," she sent an email to NBC News. "No civilian infrastructure or facility, including hospitals, medical facilities, schools, and U.N. shelters, has been spared during this war."
The so-called safe zones... are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this," stated UNICEF spokesman James Elder, another senior U.N. official, during a news briefing via video link on Tuesday.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a London-based nonprofit, shared content on social media that the map had “left people guessing which square will save their lives.”
