‘There are no safe zones in Gaza’ Declares UNICEF spokeman

Published Dec.5,2023 11:46 AM(EAT)

Unicef spokesman James Elder, who was in Gaza until earlier this week, has shared his take on the situation in the enclave with the BBC.

The Israeli military said it was dropping leaflets with QR codes that “open a map guiding Gazans to safer areas” – but Elder notes that disruptions to the electricity grid mean that many won’t have working phones to scan the codes.

He also says that the so-called “safe zones” are a “dangerous false narrative”: “These are tiny patches of barren land. They have no water, no facilities, no shelter from the cold, no sanitation.”

“If you are going to forcibly evacuate people you cannot send hundreds of thousands people to places where there is no water and no toilets. I genuinely mean no toilets. Every corner I had turned to, there was another 5000 people who would appear overnight. They don’t have a single toilet, they don’t have a drop of water.”

Elder says that a local doctor told him that “safe zones will become zones of disease”.

“The only safety in Gaza now is for hell to stop raining down from the sky,” Elder says.