Palestinians flee their houses amid Israeli strikes after Israel's call for more than 1 million civilians in northern Gaza to move south, Oct. 14, 2023.MOHAMMED SALEM/Reuters
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Israeli troops, backed by tanks, have launched the first raids into the besieged Gaza Strip since their government declared war on Hamas, ratcheting up the pressure on the densely populated Palestinian territory after a week of bombing strikes and a military order to evacuate Gaza’s northern half.
The troops, seeking to capture rockets and find clues about Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, soon pulled back. But the raids on Friday were another sign that Israel is moving closer to its widely expected ground invasion to occupy all or part of the strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a televised statement on Friday night, said the air strikes Israel has been directing at Gaza for the past week were “only the beginning.”
The Israeli army confirmed on Friday that it had told the residents of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to move to southern Gaza “for their own safety and protection.” It said “military operations” are planned in Gaza City, and that its residents will not be permitted to return until a future announcement.
The United Nations said the Israeli order had provided only 24 hours for the complete evacuation of about 1.1 million people – nearly half of the 2.3 million population of the Gaza Strip. The same order also applied to UN officials and the thousands of people sheltering in UN schools, shelters and clinics, it said.
Thousands of Palestinians headed south after the order, travelling by truck, motorcycle, donkey cart or overcrowded car. But an Israeli air strike killed 40 people and injured 150 as they tried to leave northern Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
International humanitarian agencies are warning that Israel’s evacuation order will cause panic and chaos, with potentially devastating consequences for more than a million people.
The massive evacuation is impossible “without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on Friday. The evacuation order could “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” he added.
Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, asked how 1.1 million people could possibly move across a dangerous war zone in just 24 hours. “The noose around the civilian population in Gaza is tightening,” he said in a social media post. The evacuation order “defies the rules of war and basic humanity,” he added.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides shelter and water services in Gaza, said in a statement that the evacuation order is an outrage. “The panic, chaos and trauma caused by the Israeli ultimatum to a million civilians is limitless, according to our colleagues on the ground who have to flee themselves,” Mr. Egeland said.
“All who can influence Israel must push for this madness to stop and the order to evacuate reversed,” he said. The Israeli order, without any guarantees of safety or return, would be “collective punishment” of civilians and “would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer,” he added.
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Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told a media briefing on Friday that Hamas militants are using Gaza’s civilians as a human shield. Asked repeatedly about the 24-hour deadline, he refused to confirm the exact deadline. “We understand it will take time,” he told the briefing.
As much as possible, the Israeli military will try to help civilians move safely, but it is “a war zone,” he said. He alleged that Hamas was erecting roadblocks and other barriers to prevent civilians from leaving northern Gaza. “Hamas is hiding behind the people of Gaza,” he said.
Hamas told the residents of Gaza to stay in their homes, even as Israel dropped leaflets on the territory to announce the evacuation order. The militant group called the order “fake propaganda” and “psychological warfare” by Israeli authorities.
Israeli air strikes have been hitting Gaza since last Saturday, when Hamas militants launched attacks that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians who were massacred in their homes and at a music festival, according to Israeli government figures.
LEBANON
WEST
BANK
Jerusalem
GAZA
STRIP
ISRAEL
EGYPT
JORDAN
50 KM
Population density
Low
Dense
Ashkelon
Closed
military
zone
Military base
Zikim
Border crossing
ISRAEL
Sderot
GAZA STRIP
Gaza City
Nahal Oz
Israeli-ordered
evacuation zone
Be’eri
Wadi
Gaza
Refugee
camps
Re’im
Kisufim
Khan Younis
Sufa
Rafah
North
EGYPT
5 KM
Young population
Per cent, 2020 estimates for age brackets
0 to 14
15 to 24
25 and older
22%
Gaza Strip
West Bank
Israel
25%
50%
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND JOHN SOPINSKI / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAPS; GRAPHIC NEWS; european commission; United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs; REUTERS
LEBANON
WEST
BANK
Jerusalem
GAZA
STRIP
ISRAEL
EGYPT
JORDAN
50 KM
Population density
Low
Dense
Ashkelon
Closed
military
zone
Military base
Zikim
Border crossing
ISRAEL
Sderot
GAZA STRIP
Gaza City
Nahal Oz
Israeli-ordered
evacuation zone
Be’eri
Wadi
Gaza
Refugee
camps
Re’im
Kisufim
Khan Younis
Sufa
Rafah
North
EGYPT
5 KM
Young population
Per cent, 2020 estimates for age brackets
0 to 14
15 to 24
25 and older
22%
Gaza Strip
West Bank
Israel
25%
50%
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND JOHN SOPINSKI / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAPS; GRAPHIC NEWS; european commission; United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs; REUTERS
Population density
Low
Dense
Ashkelon
LEBANON
Closed
military
zone
Military base
WEST
BANK
Zikim
Jerusalem
GAZA
STRIP
Border crossing
ISRAEL
Sderot
GAZA STRIP
ISRAEL
EGYPT
JORDAN
50 KM
Gaza City
Nahal Oz
Israeli-ordered
evacuation zone
Be’eri
Wadi Gaza
Ofakim
Refugee
camps
Re’im
Kisufim
Magen
Khan Younis
Sufa
Rafah
Young population
Per cent, 2020 estimates for age brackets
0 to 14
15 to 24
25 and older
22%
Gaza Strip
West Bank
North
EGYPT
Israel
5 KM
25%
50%
MURAT YÜKSELIR AND JOHN SOPINSKI / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAPS; GRAPHIC NEWS; european commission; United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs; REUTERS
Gaza’s health ministry estimates that about 1,900 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of the strip, and the UN says the air strikes have forced about 423,000 people from their homes.
Gaza’s supporters in the other Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, organized a wave of pro-Gaza demonstrations on Friday, soon followed by violent clashes with Israeli security forces. At least 11 people were killed and dozens were injured.
At the al-Bireh checkpoint, where a concrete wall snakes through the West Bank to protect the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit El – home to more than 5,600 Jewish settlers – hundreds of Palestinian protesters looked on as a small group of young men wearing balaclavas lit fires and slung stones toward the occupying forces. Several Palestinians were injured in an hours-long exchange that included the occasional crackle of gunfire, as Israeli troops used tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds to drive back the crowd each time it surged forward.
Earlier, in the nearby Palestinian capital of Ramallah, noon prayers were followed by one of the largest demonstrations the city has seen in decades, as thousands of protesters marched through the city centre, chanting “God is great” and “The people support the al-Qassam Brigades” – a reference to the armed wing of Hamas that carried out last Saturday’s invasion. The green flag of Hamas was dominant at the march, with only a few at the back of the procession waving the four-colour flag of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that at least 239 people had been injured in the day of clashes, including 75 who had been injured by live ammunition or shrapnel. In total, at least 43 people have died in the West Bank in the past week in skirmishes with Israeli troops.
In Gaza, fears of a humanitarian disaster are rapidly mounting. Israel has blockaded the small territory, preventing the entry of food, fuel, water and medicine. The World Health Organization warned that the health system in Gaza is “at a breaking point” and is rapidly exhausting its final supplies of fuel and medicine.
“Hospitals have only a few hours of electricity each day,” it said in a statement. When supplies run out, it will be “devastating for the most vulnerable patients, including the injured who need life-saving surgery, patients in intensive care units, and newborns depending on care in incubators.”
A mass evacuation, as ordered by the Israeli military, would be “disastrous” for patients and health workers, and it would endanger the lives of many patients, the WHO said on Friday after the order was issued. “With ongoing air strikes and closed borders, civilians have no safe place to go.”
Since last Saturday, the WHO has documented 34 attacks on health facilities in Gaza, which caused the deaths of 11 health workers on duty and 16 injuries. Nineteen health facilities and 20 ambulances have been damaged in the attacks, it said.
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Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, or MSF), which has more than 300 staff members working in Gaza, said on social media that it was told on Friday night it needed to evacuate Al Awda hospital in Gaza within two hours, even as its doctors were still treating patients.
“We unequivocally condemn this action, the continued indiscriminate bloodshed and attacks on health care in Gaza,” MSF said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, meanwhile, said it would not comply with the evacuation order. “Our medics will carry on their humanitarian duties,” it said in a statement. “We won’t leave people to face death alone.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that the evacuation order, coupled with the blockade of Gaza’s food and water supplies, is a violation of international humanitarian law. “It is impossible for Gazans to know which areas will next face attack,” the ICRC said. “The needs are staggering.”
Geoffrey York
Mark MacKinnon