HEADLINE-ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR Day 9 10.7.23| Exodus from Gaza

Palestinians carrying their belongings flee to safer areas in Gaza City on Oct. 13, 2023, after Israeli air strikes. Israel has called for the immediate relocation of 1.1 million people in Gaza amid its massive bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’s attacks, with the United Nations warning of “devastating“ consequences.(AFP/Mahmud Hams)

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Israel pressed to open ‘humanitarian corridors’

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JERUSALEM: Palestinians fled in a mass exodus Friday from northern Gaza after Israel’s military told some 1 million people to evacuate to the southern part of the besieged territory ahead of an expected ground invasion in retaliation for the surprise attack by the ruling Hamas militant group.

The United Nations-led growing voices of concern against the Israeli ultimatum as it warned that evacuating almost half of Gaza’s crowded population would be “calamitous” and urged Israel to reverse the unprecedented directive.

As airstrikes hammered the territory throughout the day, families in cars, trucks and donkey carts packed with possessions streamed down a main road out of Gaza City.

The World Health Organization (WHO), in a separate statement, called on Israel to rescind its order, saying that a mass evacuation would be “disastrous for patients, health workers and other civilians left behind or caught in the mass movement.”

“With ongoing airstrikes and closed borders, civilians have no safe place to go. Almost half of the population of Gaza is under 18 years of age. With dwindling supplies of safe food, clean water, health services and without adequate shelter, children and adults, including the elderly, will all be at heightened risk of disease,” the health organization said.

WHO cited the “compressed time frame, complex transport logistics, damaged roads and lack of supportive care during the evacuation” would add to the difficulty of moving residents.

It said the lack of medical supplies is already “endangering patients, hampering health workers, and the supplies, which the organization had pre-positioned in Gaza, have mostly been consumed.”

WHO said the Palestinian Ministry of Health has informed them that it is impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients, such as those who are critically injured or dependent on life support, without endangering their lives.

It said that two Ministry of Health hospitals in the north of Gaza that continue to operate have greatly exceeded their combined 760-bed capacity with severe overcrowding.

Of the thousands of patients with injuries and other conditions receiving care in hospitals, there are hundreds who are severely wounded and over 100 who require critical care, WHO said.

The four Ministry of Health hospitals in the south of Gaza are already “at or beyond capacity and lack the critical care capacity and supplies needed to treat additional patients.”

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on October 9 to request the facilitation of the delivery of health and other humanitarian supplies to Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

WHO said it has prepared medical supplies in its logistics hub in Dubai and is ready to deliver them to Areesh, Egypt — just 20 minutes from Rafah—as soon as the landing permit is received.

The organization said the supplies will be enough to care for more than 300,000 patients with a range of wounds and diseases.

WHO reiterated its plea for “humanitarian access for life-saving supplies and the delivery of fuel, water, and food; for protection under international humanitarian law for civilians, health workers and health infrastructure; and for an end to hostilities and violence.”

 

‘Impossible’

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell called the plan by Israel to evacuate more than 1 million people out of northern Gaza in a single day “utterly impossible to implement.”

The UN expressed similar concerns.

“The situation in Gaza has reached a dangerous new low,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

“Even wars have rules,” Guterres said. “International humanitarian law and human rights law must be respected and upheld; civilians must be protected and also never used as shields.”

In Jordan, after a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, King Abdullah II called for “humanitarian corridors” to be opened urgently.

Egypt — which runs the Rafah crossing to the south of Gaza — faces the dilemma of accepting refugees with the possibility that Israel may never let them return, weakening Palestinian aspirations for statehood.

Meanwhile, the Hamas’ media office said warplanes struck cars fleeing south, killing more than 70 people. The Israeli military said its troops conducted temporary raids into Gaza to battle militants and hunted for traces of some 150 people abducted in Hamas’ assault on Israel nearly a week ago.

In urging the evacuation, Israel’s military said it planned to target underground Hamas hideouts around Gaza City. But Palestinians and some Egyptian officials fear that Israel ultimately hopes to push Gaza’s people out through the southern border with Egypt.

Hamas told people to ignore the evacuation order, and families in Gaza faced what they saw as a no-win decision to leave or stay, with no safe ground anywhere. Hospital staff said they couldn’t abandon patients.

Unrelenting Israeli strikes over the past week have leveled large swaths of neighborhoods, magnifying the suffering of Gaza, which has also been sealed off from food, water and medical supplies, and under a virtual total power blackout.

“Forget about food, forget about electricity, forget about fuel. The only concern now is just if you’ll make it if you’re going to live,” said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City, as she broke into heaving sobs.

In the nearly week-old war, the Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that roughly 1,900 people have been killed in the territory — more than half of them under the age of 18 or women. The Hamas assault last Saturday killed more than 1,300 Israelis, most of whom were civilians, and roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed during the fighting, the Israeli government said.

 

‘All around the Gaza Strip’

Israel has called up around 300,000 reserve troops. On Saturday, Army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said they are “all around the Gaza Strip,” as well as elsewhere in the country.

“We will likely evolve into additional significant combat operations,” Conricus said.

Israel’s army on Saturday announced the death in air strikes of a senior Hamas military commander, Murad Abu Murad. Hamas did not immediately confirm his death but has previously announced that two senior members from its political bureau were killed in Israeli strikes.

The militant group said Friday that 13 hostages had been killed in Israeli strikes but offered no evidence.

 

‘Genocide’

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in Israel Friday, accused Hamas of using residents as a “shield” in Gaza, where Israel has cut off water, fuel and food supplies.

US President Joe Biden spoke with the families of 14 Americans who have been missing since the Hamas attack, telling CBS’s “60 Minutes”: “We’re going to do everything in our power to find them.”

Israel’s army has confirmed contacting the families of 120 civilian hostages so far.

Biden also stressed that addressing the swelling humanitarian crisis in Gaza was a “priority.”

Tensions have risen across the Middle East and beyond, with angry protests in support of the Palestinians, while Israel faces the threat of a separate confrontation with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A Reuters video journalist was killed and six other reporters — from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera — were injured in southern Lebanon close to Israel, caught up in cross-border shelling.

Israeli forces said Saturday they had “struck a Hezbollah terror target in southern Lebanon” in response to a drone crossing the border. They separately said Israeli forces killed several “terrorists” trying to cross the border from Lebanon.

In the occupied West Bank, 16 Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces during protests supporting Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said. It was one of the West Bank’s deadliest days since tensions began rising early last year.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.

But Netanyahu’s spokesman Tal Heinrich told AFP: “Everything that happens in Gaza is Hamas’ responsibility.”

Thousands also demonstrated in support of the Palestinians on Friday in Beirut, Iraq, Iran and in Jordan.

Demonstrations also took place in Bahrain, where Blinken visited Saturday as part of a regional tour seeking to keep calm in the Arab world.

In Israel, the public remained in shock over the Hamas rampage and frightened by continual rocket fire out of Gaza. The public is overwhelmingly in favor of the military offensive, and Israeli TV stations have set up special broadcasts with slogans like “Together we will win” and “Strong together.” Their reports focus heavily on the aftermath of the Hamas attack and stories of heroism and national unity, and they make scant mention of the unfolding crisis in Gaza.

 

Avoid harming civilians

The UN said the Israeli military’s call for civilians to move south affects 1.1 million people. If carried out, that would mean the territory’s entire population would have to cram into the southern half of the 40-kilometer (25-mile) strip.

Conricus said the military would take “extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians” and that residents would be allowed to return when the war is over.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using Palestinians as human shields. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel wanted to separate Hamas militants from the civilian population.

“So those who want to save their life, please go south,” he said at a news conference with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

 

‘Don’t get involved’

Even before the evacuation order, more than 423,000 people had already fled their homes, according to the UN.

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit said Israel’s order is a “forced transfer” that constitutes “a crime.”

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said it would be “tantamount to a second Nakba” or “catastrophe,” referring to the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Israel risked waging an “unacceptable” siege in Gaza comparable to the Nazi blockade of Leningrad during World War 2.

Israeli soldiers have swept the southern towns and kibbutz farming communities since Hamas’s attack. They said they found the bodies of 1,500 militants, as well as large numbers of civilians killed by Hamas fighters.

More than 100 people were killed in the community of Beeri alone, just outside Gaza, while around 270 were gunned down or burned in their cars at the nearby Supernova music festival.

Concern for regional stability prompted the United States to send additional munitions to Israel and its largest aircraft carrier to the region.

Biden has warned other regional powers not to get involved.

Israel’s arch-foe Iran has long financially and militarily backed Hamas and praised its attack but insists it was not involved.

In a sign of the regional upheaval, Saudi Arabia “has decided to pause discussion on possible normalization and has informed US officials,” a source familiar with the discussions told AFP.

Biden’s administration had been pushing efforts for Saudi Arabia and Israel to establish diplomatic ties after similar deals with a few other Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates.

Riyadh has issued several statements in the past week affirming its support for the Palestinian cause.