Gaza Herald _Israel has expanded the areas under its military occupation across the Gaza Strip in recent days, with residents reporting that the advancing “Yellow Line” has forced thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes and displacement shelters once again.
Residents in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, Tuffah, Shejaia, and northern Rafah told Reuters that Israeli forces have pushed the “Yellow Line” forward over the past 10 days, triggering a new wave of forced displacement across multiple parts of the enclave.
In Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, families said they were compelled to leave after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders and expanded its military-controlled zone.
Residents said it was the seventh or eighth time their families had been forcibly displaced since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began.
Zeitoun is one of at least five areas where residents and Hamas officials say Israeli forces have advanced the “Yellow Line,” a military demarcation established under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement reached in October.
By late April, Israel effectively controlled an estimated 64 percent of the Gaza Strip. On May 28, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel intended to expand that control to 70 percent of the enclave.
In a statement issued on July 20, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said an Israeli displacement order in Zeitoun forced at least 30 families to leave their tents, which residents later said were destroyed.
Since launching its genocide in Gaza on October 8, 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded over 174,000 others, while approximately 90 percent of the Strip’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.
