Summary
The coastal area Israel unilaterally designated a “safer zone” in December 2023, whose comparatively low casualty share Debunking the Genocide Allegations uses in Chapter 4 to argue that evacuation orders significantly reduced civilian risk (Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025, PDF p.101, p.114-115).
Details
- At the outset of the war Al-Mawasi lacked both military infrastructure and significant civilian habitation; its designation as a “safer zone” remained in effect, and the area was not subject to evacuation orders, up to the ceasefire of January 17, 2025, and it was later extended northwards to Deir Al Balah and expanded to the western neighbourhoods of Khan Younis (PDF p.114-115).
- International humanitarian organisations and the UN refused to participate in directing supplies and services to the area until forced to do so by the Rafah operation, arguing such declarations require mutual consent (PDF p.114).
- Hamas used the zone as a safe haven for leading officials, notably Muhammad Deif, killed in an airstrike there, and relocated much of its surviving rocket-launching capability into it: within days of designation hundreds of rockets were fired from it into Israel, dozens falling within Gaza itself (PDF p.115).
- Despite housing over half of Gaza’s population in the later stages, around 550 deaths were recorded in the zone from May 2024 to January 2025 on BBC Verify data, including 90 in the Deif strike: 2.1 percent of all identified deaths between May 2024 and March 2025, or 3.5 percent on the GMOH “reliable media report” supplemented data (PDF p.115); Chapter 4’s summary gives the range as 2-4 percent (PDF p.101).
Related pages
Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025, Gaza, Hamas