The United Nations insisted there was no safe place for Palestinians ordered to leave Gaza City and that Israel-designated zones in the south were "places of death".
"The notion of a safe zone in the south is farcical," UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva on Friday, speaking from Gaza, pointing out that "bombs are dropped from the sky with chilling predictability; schools, which had been designated as temporary shelters are regularly reduced to rubble, (and) tents... are regularly engulfed in fire from air attacks".
Two-year-long war
The warnings come amid Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza, now approaching its second year, which have claimed around 67,000 lives, most of them civilians.
Palestinian authorities and humanitarian experts caution that the actual death toll is likely far higher than official figures, with estimates suggesting it could reach around 200,000.
Essential services have been devastated, including hospitals, schools, and water and sanitation systems, leaving Gaza’s more than two million residents in increasingly desperate conditions.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into makeshift camps, shelters, and open areas, often lacking even basic protection, as the civilian population struggles to survive under continuous bombardment.
Trump’s peace plan
On September 29, the White House issued a detailed plan calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, followed by a comprehensive program for reconstruction and a reorganisation of the enclave’s political and security situation.
The plan seeks to turn Gaza into a weapons-free zone, with a transitional governance mechanism, overseen directly by Trump through a new international body tasked with monitoring implementation.
It includes the release of all Israeli hostages within 72 hours of approval, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
The plan stipulates halting hostilities, disarming the Palestinian resistance, and Israel’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza, to be governed by a technocratic authority under the supervision of an international body led by the US president.
Trump said he would give Hamas “three or four days” to respond to his proposal to end the nearly two-year-long war in Gaza.
