Israel orders EVACUATION of 1.1M people from Northern Gaza within 24 hours, UN says

The Israeli army on Friday led the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region that is home to 1.1 million people – about half the territory’s population – within 24 hours, a UN spokesman said.

It may be the strongest response yet to Hamas’s shocking attack on Saturday and smaller attacks since then that have killed more than 1,500 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers – a number not seen in Israel for decades.

This could signal an imminent ground offensive, although the Israeli military has not yet confirmed such a call. On Thursday, he said that while he was preparing, a decision has not yet been made.

The order, submitted to the UN, comes as Israel is waging an offensive against Hamas militants. UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called the order “impossible” without “devastating humanitarian consequences”.

Earlier, the Israeli military pulverized the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said its total encirclement of the territory – which has left Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine – would remain in place. in the country until Hamas militants free about 150 hostages. taken during a freak weekend raid.

A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with US arms shipments, provided a strong green light for Israel to press ahead with its revenge in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on civilians and soldiers, even as international groups aides warned of a worsening. humanitarian crisis.

Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents and blocked the entry of supplies from Egypt.

“Not a single power switch will be turned on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages return home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media. .

Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that forces are “preparing for a ground maneuver” if political leaders order one.

A ground offensive in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas and where the population is densely packed into a strip of land only 25 miles long, would likely inflict even greater casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.

The ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1,530 people in Gaza, according to authorities on both sides.

Israel says around 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel and that hundreds of those killed in Gaza are members of Hamas. Thousands have been injured on both sides.

As Israel strikes Gaza from the air, Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel.

Amid concerns that the fighting could spread to the region, Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday knocked out two Syrian international airports.

The relentless barrage in Gaza – which the army said has so far included 6,000 rounds of ammunition – left Palestinians running through the streets, clutching their belongings and seeking safety.

An attack on Thursday afternoon in the Jabaliya refugee camp brought down a residential building on the families sheltering inside, killing at least 45 people, Gaza’s Interior Ministry said.

At least 23 of the dead were under the age of 18, including a month-old child, according to a casualty list.

The house belonging to the al-Shihab family was filled with relatives who had fled the bombing in other areas. Neighbors said a second home was hit at the same time, but the number of the number was not immediately known.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We can’t leave because everywhere you go, you’re bombed,” said a neighbor, Khalil Abu Yahia. “It would take a miracle to survive here.”

The number of people forced from their homes by airstrikes rose by 25% in one day, reaching 423,000 out of a population of 2.3 million, the UN said on Thursday. Most crowded into UN-run schools.

Families were cutting one meal a day, said Rami Swailem, a 34-year-old lecturer at al-Azhar University, who had 32 relatives sheltering in his home. The water stopped coming to the building two days ago, and they have been rationing what is left in a tank on the roof.

Alaa Younis Abuel-Omrain has been staying at a UN school after an attack on her home killed eight members of her family – her mother, aunt, a sister, a brother and his wife and their three children. Most of the bakeries stopped producing bread due to the lack of electricity.

“Even if there is food in some areas, we cannot reach it because of the strikes,” she said.

On Wednesday, Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators.

Hospitals, overwhelmed by a steady stream of wounded and short on supplies, have only a few days of fuel left before the power goes out, aid officials say.

“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Newborn incubators, kidney dialysis machines, X-ray equipment and more all depend on energy, he said.

Ambulance crews transporting the bodies to the morgue at Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, found no room.

Dozens of full bags lined the hospital parking lot. Fourteen health facilities were damaged in the strikes, health officials said Thursday.

With Israel sealing off the territory, the only way in or out is through the crossing with Egypt at Rafah, but Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that airstrikes at Rafah have prevented it from operating.

Egypt has tried to persuade Israel and the United States to allow aid and fuel through the crossing.

Israel is using a new tactic of leveling entire neighborhoods, instead of individual buildings.

Hecht, the military spokesman, said targeting decisions were based on intelligence on locations being used by Hamas and that civilians had been warned.

“Right now, we’re focused on removing their senior leadership,” Hecht said. The military said the strikes hit Hamas’s elite Nukhba stronghold, including command centers used by fighters in Saturday’s attack, and the home of a senior Hamas naval operative used to store weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “smash” Hamas after the militants stormed the south of the country on Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including killing children in their homes and youths at a music festival.

Netanyahu said Hamas atrocities included beheading soldiers and raping women, descriptions that could not immediately be independently confirmed.

Amid the grief and demands for revenge among the Israeli public, the government is under great pressure to topple Hamas instead of continuing to try to fill it in Gaza.

In a video released Thursday, Hamas civilian figures defended the group’s rampage and condemned the civilian deaths in Gaza from six days of Israeli airstrikes.

The solemn video lacked the boldness of a recording broadcast on Saturday by Hamas’ military wing that hailed the “greatest battle” while the massacres were still taking place.

Basem Naim, a former minister in the Hamas government, said that in the ‘rapid collapse’ of the Israeli army on Saturday, ‘chaos prevailed and civilians found themselves in the middle of the confrontation.’

The claim is contradicted by countless videos and accounts of survivors of Hamas militants targeting and killing civilians in Israel.

Naim added that there will be no action to free the 150 captives returned to Gaza while Israel’s operation continues.

Israel was a nation in mourning. At a funeral for a 25-year-old woman killed with at least 260 other people in a desert rampage and at another service for a slain Israeli soldier, mourners sat cross-legged on the ground next to coffins, wailing or crying in silence.

In Gaza, too, mourners buried families together with the shroud. At a funeral, they placed the battered body of a little girl in the arms of her murdered father.

Rising anger over Israeli military and intelligence failures in the surprise attack is directed at Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has for months advanced a controversial legal overhaul that has divided the country and affected the military.

In what appeared to be the first admission of guilt by a member of the government, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told the Israeli newspaper Ynet: “We are responsible. I as a member of the government am responsible. We were dealing with nonsense.’

Israel’s public diplomacy minister resigned, the first crack in Netanyahu’s government since the attack.

Four previous conflicts ended with Hamas still firmly in control of the territory it has ruled since 2007. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists, massed forces near Gaza and evacuated tens of thousands of residents from nearby communities.

A new war cabinet, which includes a long-time opposition politician, was sworn in on Thursday to lead the war.

A senior Hamas official, Saleh Al-Arouri, warned on Thursday that any Israeli invasion of Gaza ‘will turn into a disaster for its army’, saying the group was prepared to respond.

The Secretary of State will also meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority is limited to parts of the occupied West Bank, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin planned to visit Israel on Friday.