GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A new wave of mass displacement is redrawing the landscape of Gaza.
A picturesque harbor is now blanketed in tents. A building belonging to the Qatari diplomatic mission is a refugee camp.
Nearly 180,000 Palestinians have been on the move seeking new shelter since Israel launched an intensified military offensive two weeks ago, a United Nations-led humanitarian group said Tuesday.
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Israel's military has ordered the evacuations, saying its ultimate aim is to capture 75% of the territory, send civilians to a zone in the south secured by its forces, and defeat the Palestinian militant group Hamas after more than a year and a half of war.
Hunger and death also hang over Gaza's 2.1 million residents, as Israel is allowing small amounts of food into the territory and increasing its airstrikes.
One strike early Monday set ablaze a Gaza City school where newly displaced families were sheltering. It killed more than 30 people, including at least 18 children, a Gaza rescue group said. Israel's military said it targeted Hamas militants plotting attacks there.
"We found body parts and everyone screaming on fire," said Jamalat Abdelaal, who came running from her tent nearby, trying to help. "Children. What did they do?"
A U.S.-backed group begins handing out food in a program criticized by the U.N.
Extreme hunger is widespread after a nearly three-month ban on food, medicine and other supplies.
Under U.S. pressure, Israel is allowing limited quantities back into Gaza, under a new plan that aid groups are criticizing.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed group, has begun distributing food in southern Gaza. The Israeli military said the aid distribution was taking place in two sites in southern Gaza. The military released a video of one large empty site in a sandy desert area near the Mediterranean shore, and images of the food distributed, including canned meat, pasta, oil and crackers.
Videos circulating on social media show streams of Palestinians walking down a long dirt path amid the rubble of Israeli strikes, carrying large cardboard food parcels on their shoulders, collected from a new fenced zone.
Israel says the system is intended to deny supplies to Hamas and weaken its control in Gaza.
"American companies will distribute the food directly to Palestinian families. They'll do so in (a) safe zone secured by our military," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video. "Palestinian civilians will have to move south to get food, and this will allow us to complete our goal of destroying Hamas, while enabling aid to reach the civilian population."
Israeli soldiers are said to be on guard nearby, but Palestinians reported there were no security checks or requirements to show identification documents, drawing into question Israel's stated goal of isolating Hamas militants from the aid.
Within hours of the first distribution points being opened, large crowds of people seeking food swarmed one of the sites, prompting Israeli troops to fire warning shots nearby and the contractors working for the U.S. security company to flee.
The U.N. and aid groups working in Gaza say this program would compel Palestinians to move south to get food, amounting to forcible displacement and restrictions on aid. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says the ultimate goal is to move Palestinians to other countries.
Hamas warned Palestinians not to take food from the group, calling it a plot to permanently move Palestinians abroad. Palestinian civilians told NPR they feel caught in the middle, between feeding their hungry families and taking part in a displacement plan.
"This is so conflicting for me," said Malek Al Shenbari, living in a tent with his three children in southern Gaza. "But if it reached the level of deciding between my children or the homeland, of course my children are more important than anything."
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's founding director, Jake Wood, a former U.S. Marine, abruptly resigned Sunday, saying the program would not adhere to humanitarian principles. The group appointed a new director, John Acree, a former official with the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The group has not divulged its funding. Israel's opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has claimed without providing evidence that the Israeli government is secretly funding it.
A picturesque harbor is now a tent camp for the newly displaced
Palestinians newly displaced in tents describe daily and nightly miseries.
"There are flies and mosquitoes feeding on our blood," said Sulaf Wishah, who recently pitched a tent on the Gaza City harbor with her family.
The family set a trap on the floor of the tent to catch the mouse that's been eating the little bread they have. Packs of dogs roam at night, and Israeli drones buzz above, she said.
"There are no feelings," Wishah said. "You wake up and go to sleep to the sound of shelling, eat and drink to the sound of shelling, pray to the sound of shelling."
She is seven months pregnant, but doctors say they can't detect a pulse from her fetus, and that she suffers from malnutrition, she said.
NPR's Daniel Estrin reported from Tel Aviv, Anas Baba reported from Gaza City and Ahmad Abuhamda contributed to this story from Cairo, Egypt.
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