Israel’s military yesterday told about 1 million people to evacuate northern Gaza and head to the southern part of the territory, an unprecedented order applying to almost half the population ahead of an expected ground invasion against the Hamas militant group.
The UN said that so many people fleeing en masse — with just a 24-hour deadline — would be calamitous.
Hamas, which staged an attack on Israel nearly a week ago and has fired thousands of rockets since, dismissed the evacuation order as a ploy and called on people to stay in their homes.
Photo: AFP
The order sparked panic among civilians and aid workers already running from Israeli airstrikes, and contending with a total siege and a territory-wide 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 spokeswoman for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City.
The war has already claimed more than 2,800 lives on both sides and sent tensions soaring across the region.
Israel has traded fire in the past few days with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, sparking fears of an ever wider conflict, although that frontier was calm yesterday.
Weekly Muslim prayers brought protests across the Middle East and tensions ran high in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Islamic endowment that manages the al-Aqsa Mosque compound said Israeli authorities were barring all Palestinian men under the age of 50 from entering.
Israel said it needed to target Hamas’ military infrastructure, much of which is underground.
Military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said that the military would take “extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians” and that residents would be allowed to return when the war is over.
Hamas militants operate in civilian areas, where Israel has long accused them of using Palestinians as human shields.
A mass evacuation of civilians, if carried out, would leave their fighters exposed as never before.
However, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that it would be impossible to stage such an evacuation without “devastating humanitarian consequences.”
He called on Israel to rescind any such orders, saying they could “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
Meanwhile, Hamas called on people in the area ordered evacuated to stay in their homes, saying that Israel “is trying to create confusion among citizens and harm the cohesion of our internal front.”
It urged Palestinians to ignore what it said was “psychological warfare.”
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