Terrified families fled their homes in Gaza yesterday – as aid agencies warned it was being reduced to a ‘hellhole’.
Women carried children in their arms as they fled on foot, fear and desperation etched on their faces and their belongings piled high on trucks and donkey carts.
Families ignored official pleas from Hamas for them to stay in their homes and instead began an extraordinary flight into the unknown.
Many said they had no idea where they were going, only that they were desperate to leave before neighboring Israel stepped up its military retaliation for last Saturday’s terror attacks.
Civilians have already endured a week of punishing airstrikes that have wiped out entire neighborhoods and killed 1,900 people.
Meanwhile, Israel’s soldiers, tanks and guns continued to mass on the border, prompting fears that an invasion could begin at any moment.
Smoke billows after Israeli strikes amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza, October 13, 2023
Thousands have been rushed to evacuate northern Gaza ahead of an expected Israeli invasion
Palestinians fleeing from northern Gaza to the south on Friday 13 October 2023
Palestinians in Gaza City flee for their lives after Israel’s evacuation order to the north
Queues of traffic pictured as they try to leave Gaza City – an evacuation order which the UN says is ‘impossible’ to fully achieve
Smoke rises above buildings in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike on October 13
Its military force included large armored bulldozers that could tear apart buildings to clear a path for troops and tanks.
Aid agencies have said the unprecedented evacuation is impossible, and would have to include refugee camps containing tens of thousands who have already fled. The Israeli army ordered much of the population in the northern part of the area to move south under the Wadi Gaza.
This means that more than a million people from the north must now cram into the southern part of this 25-mile-long strip of land.
The World Health Organization said evacuating those with serious injuries would amount to a ‘death sentence’. Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UN’s Palestine Refugee Agency, said Gaza was ‘fast becoming hell and is on the brink of collapse’. Huge queues of traffic formed as thousands tried to drive south, amid reports that Hamas had blocked roads.
Those who had already reached the south said they were still under fire. A family of 16 who reached Khan Yunis said they were crammed into a house with 60 others and said they were British.
A man who gave his name as Mohammed told BBC Radio 4 he fled with family members, including his father, 77, and three young children. He said: ‘We got into our cars, and the babies were asleep at 5am… We ran for our lives, there was a huge shelling.
‘We now live in a house full of people who are also evacuating. There are about 50 to 60 people in this house, but we are afraid for our lives. I’m not afraid for my life, I’m afraid for my children. We’ve been contacting the British consulate in London for the past five days and nobody knows what’s going on – they have no plan for how we’re going to get out of here.’
The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for a humanitarian corridor in Gaza as civilians ‘cannot bear the cost of terrorists’.
Justin Welby condemned the Hamas attacks and said Israel’s anger was ‘totally justified’. But he said more than two million civilians in Gaza were facing a ‘catastrophe’.
The Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, said he believed the government placed a different value on Palestinian lives than those of Israelis.
Mr Yousaf, whose mother-in-law is trapped in Gaza, said he was ‘frustrated’ by ministers’ response and said they must put pressure on Israel to protect civilian lives.
Israel’s military response led to Gaza’s only power plant being forced to shut down after it ran out of fuel, leaving the area without electricity or running water.
Hospitals are overwhelmed by casualties from the airstrikes, and can only function with emergency generators that are also out of fuel. Medicins San Frontieres said staff at one of its hospitals were given only two hours to evacuate, while they were still treating patients.
Palestinians have been left completely without fuel or power since a siege began on Monday
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) on Friday ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the southern area of the coastal enclave ahead of a possible Israeli ground offensive
An Israeli soldier maneuvers a Merkava main battle tank as it deploys along with other tanks along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on October 13, 2023
Israel is sending in columns of tanks to deploy along the border with the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned ground invasion
Israel has bombarded Gaza’s civilian population with airstrikes and artillery since Hamas launched a devastating attack on Saturday – and is now poised for an invasion
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which works in Israel and with the Palestinians, said the Israeli demand for a mass evacuation was tantamount to a war crime.
Secretary-General Jan Egeland said: ‘The collective punishment of scores of civilians, including children, women and the elderly, in retaliation for acts of horrific terror carried out by armed men is illegal under international law.’
Israel acknowledged that its 24-hour deadline for the major evacuation may be unrealistic, but continued to mass its soldiers and tanks near the border. It said it would continue its blockade of fuel, food, water or medicine entering Gaza until Hamas freed all hostages taken in last Saturday’s brutal attacks that killed 1,300 people.