The Israeli army today ordered the emergency evacuation within 24 hours of «all civilians» from Gaza City, on the seventh day of its war against Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will «crush».
Since the beginning of hostilities on 7 October, with the bloody Hamas assault, more than 1,300 people, the majority of them civilians, have died in Israel. In the Gaza Strip, massive Israeli retaliatory strikes have claimed the lives of over 1,500 people, including many civilians, according to local authorities.
Chachal, the Israeli army «orders the evacuation of all civilians from their homes in the city to the south for their safety and protection,» he said in a statement released at dawn.
Civilians are told to «go to the sector south of the Wadi Gaza», a small river in the southern part of Gaza City. «You will not be allowed to return to Gaza City until a later announcement,» he added.
In New York, Stefan Dujarik, spokesman for the UN Secretary General, announced before the Israeli army's order was even made public that an emergency evacuation of civilians was to be requested, estimating that it would affect about 1.1 million people in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
He warned that an evacuation of this scale would be «impossible» without «catastrophic humanitarian consequences».
In these circumstances «the United Nations calls for this order (...) to be revoked to prevent the transformation of what is a tragedy into a disaster», he insisted.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, reacted strongly.
«The UN's reaction» to Israel's warning to Gazans is «shameful», he said, while accusing its agencies of «turning a blind eye for years» to Hamas' use of the civilian population as a shield and political infrastructure for weapons storage.
A few hours earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised, after a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to wipe out Hamas, which has been in power in the Palestinian enclave since 2007.
«As Daesh crashed, so will Hamas,» Netanyahu added, referring to the Islamic State jihadist organisation.
Statements suggesting that a ground operation in the Gaza Strip is imminent.
At dawn on October 7, the last day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, hundreds of Hamas militants entered Israel by land, sea and air, and killed more than a thousand people, in the streets, in their homes, at electronic music festivals, at military bases, spreading terror under a barrage of rockets. The militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement drove dozens of hostages into the Gaza Strip.
After the attack, the Israeli army reported finding 1,500 bodies of Hamas members.
The movement said it kidnapped dozens of Israelis, foreigners and people with dual citizenship. The Israeli authorities claim 150 hostages, while hundreds of people are still missing and many bodies remain to be identified.
Israel reacted by declaring war to destroy Hamas. Chahal said yesterday that since Saturday he had dropped some 6,000 bombs, or a total of 4,000 tons of explosives, on the Gaza Strip.
In the Palestinian enclave, explosions can be heard incessantly. «Why? We didn't do anything!» screamed a man holding the body of a relative he had just pulled from the rubble of a building in a bombed-out neighbourhood.
More than 423,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip because of the bombing, according to the UN, which has appealed for $294 million in donations to meet «urgent needs» in the Palestinian Territories.
The UN Security Council is expected to meet today to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip. On 8 October, at its first meeting since the Hamas attack, it was unable to reach unanimity to issue a joint condemnatory resolution.
