Directives could signal an impending ground offensive, though the Israeli military has not yet confirmed such a move
Palestinians with their belongings flee to safer areas in Gaza. Pic/AP
Israel’s military directed the evacuation on Friday of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The directive came on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning they received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in the north of Gaza within 24 hours.
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The Israeli military order, which comes on the seventh day of a war declared by Israel following an unprecedented Hamas incursion and deadly attack, directs residents of Gaza City to flee deeper south into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory. Israel’s directive charged that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels under the city.
Children watch as civil defence responders search for victims. Pic/AP
This is chaos, no one understands what to do,” said Inas Hamdan, an officer at the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza City while she grabbed whatever she could throw into her bags as the panicked shouts of her relatives could be heard around her. She said all the UN staff in Gaza City and northern Gaza had been told to evacuate to Rafah.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” Dujarric said. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” the spokesman said.
“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the Israeli military said, in a warning it said was sent to Gaza City civilians. The flurry of directives could signal an impending ground offensive, though the Israeli military has not yet confirmed such a move. On Thursday it said that while it was preparing, no decision has been made. Israel delivered an even broader evacuation order “giving almost half of tiny Gaza’s population 24 hours to flee to the territory’s south” to the UN, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The Israeli military did not immediately confirm the broader evacuation. The broad order for all of Gaza’s north also applies to UN staff and to the thousands who have taken shelter in schools and other facilities.
Hamas practised raid in plain sight
Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel’s high-tech “Iron Wall”, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal. A slickly produced two-minute propaganda video posted to social media by Hamas on September 12 shows fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.
Mass protest after Friday prayers across Mideast
Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated Friday across the Middle East in support of the Palestinians and to protest against the Israeli airstrikes pounding the Gaza Strip, underscoring the risk of a wider regional conflict erupting as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion there.
People gather to perform the weekly Muslim Friday prayers at Baghdad’s Tahrir Square during an anti-Israel demonstration. Pic/AP
From Amman, Jordan, to Yemen’s capital, Muslims poured out onto the streets after weekly Friday prayers. At Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Israeli police had been permitting only older men, women and children for prayers, trying to prevent the potential for demonstration as tens of thousands attend on a typical Friday. In Baghdad alone, tens of thousands gathered in Tahrir Square in the center of Baghdad for protests called by the influential Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
Across Iran, a supporter of Hamas and Israel’s regional archenemy, demonstrators protested. In Tehran, the capital, protesters burned Israeli and Ameircan flags, chanting: “Death to Israel,” “Death to America,” “Israel will be doomed,” and “Palestine will be the conqueror.”
Israeli diplomat attacked in China
An employee of the Israeli Embassy in Beijing was attacked on Friday and later hospitalised, the country’s Foreign Ministry said. It wasn’t clear what sparked the attack, though it comes after Israel criticised China for its statement that followed Hamas’s attack.
1,300
No of Israelis believed to be killed in Hamas attack
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