Civilians told to leave Gaza as Israeli operation looms

Henriette Chacar, Michelle Nichols and Humeyra Pamuk | October 13, 2023

Israel’s military has called for all civilians of Gaza City – more than a million people – to relocate south within 24 hours as it amasses tanks near the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground invasion.

“Now is a time for war,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday as Israeli warplanes continued pounding Gaza in retaliation for the weekend attacks by Hamas militants that killed more than 1300 Israelis, mostly civilians.

The Israeli military said it would operate “significantly” in Gaza City in the coming days and civilians would only be able to return when another announcement was made.

“Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields,” the military said in a statement.

“Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent Gazan civilians.”

A Hamas official urged citizens not to fall for what it called “fake propaganda”.

Its military wing later said 13 among scores of people it captured from Israel had been killed in the latest Israeli air strikes.

The Palestinian envoy to Japan accused the Israelis of seeking to completely destroy Gaza while the United Nations said it considered it impossible for such a movement of people to take place “without devastating humanitarian consequences”.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, described the UN response to Israel’s early warning to the residents of Gaza as “shameful”.

The Israeli military said it struck 750 military targets in northern Gaza overnight, including what it said were Hamas tunnels, military compounds, residences of senior operatives and weapons storage warehouses.

A ground invasion of the narrow and densely populated Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people, poses serious risk, with Hamas threatening to kill its hostages.

Hours after the Israeli evacuation call, there were no signs people were leaving Gaza City, where dozens gathered at the al-Shifa Hospital, vowing to stay put.

The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said more than 400,000 people had fled their homes in Gaza and 23 aid workers had been killed.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said generators at hospitals in Gaza could run out of fuel within hours and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned food and fresh water were running dangerously low.

“The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent,” ICRC regional director Fabrizio Carboni said.

Seeking to build support for its response, Israel’s government showed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defence ministers graphic images of children and civilians they said Hamas had killed in its weekend rampage in Israel.

Blinken said they showed a baby “riddled with bullets”, soldiers beheaded and young people burned in their cars. 

“It’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,” he said.

“It’s really beyond anything that we can comprehend.”

Blinken was due on Friday to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Blinken also planned to visit key US allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – some with influence on Hamas, an Islamist group backed by Iran.

Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said lessons would be drawn from the security failures around Gaza that enabled the attack. 

“We will learn, investigate, but now is the time for war,” he said.

Turkey has offered to mediate the conflict and wants to send humanitarian aid to Palestinians affected by the fighting. 

Hamas called on Palestinians to rise up on Friday in protest at Israel’s bombardment of the enclave, urging Palestinians to march to East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and clash with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.

The conflict has spurred civil unrest in Europe, with police in Paris using tear gas and water cannons to break up a banned rally in support of the Palestinians. 

Some Jewish schools in Amsterdam and London were set to close temporarily due to safety concerns.

US law enforcement officials in New York and Los Angeles said they had stepped up the police presence around synagogues and Jewish community centres.

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, an Arab advocacy group, said on Thursday that FBI agents had visited mosques in different states and individual US residents with Palestinian roots, calling it a “troubling trend”.