2023-10-13 13:40:25
24 hours to evacuate more than a million Palestinians. The Israeli army ordered the “relocation” within 24 hours to the south of more than “all civilians” from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, on the seventh day of the war between Israel and Hamas. An appeal for “their own safety and protection”, according to an army press release. “You will be able to return to Gaza only when another announcement allowing it is made.”
“Today (October 12) just before midnight local time,” UN officials in Gaza “were informed by their Israeli military liaison officers that the entire population north of Wadi Gaza was to be relocated to the south within 24 hours,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the organization’s secretary general. He warned that an evacuation of such a scale was “impossible without causing devastating humanitarian consequences”.
In response, Hamas asks Gazans not to leave their homes. “The occupation is attempting to propagate and circulate false propaganda through various means, with the aim of creating confusion among citizens and undermining the stability of our domestic front,” the statement said, referring to Israel.
In these circumstances, “the United Nations strongly calls for this order, if confirmed, to be rescinded to prevent what is already a tragedy from becoming a calamitous situation,” he insisted.
A few hours earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised, after a meeting in Tel Aviv with American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to annihilate Hamas. “Just as ISIS was crushed, Hamas will be crushed,” the prime minister said, referring to the Islamic State group. Statements which suggest a ground offensive in Gaza against Hamas.
423,000 Palestinians displaced in recent days
Since the start of hostilities, triggered on October 7 by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement, around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israel. In the Gaza Strip, massive Israeli strikes launched in response left 1,417 dead, including many civilians, according to local authorities.
At dawn on October 7, the last day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel in vehicles, by air and sea, to kill more than a thousand civilians in the streets. , at home or in the middle of a music festival, sowing terror under a deluge of rockets. Hamas also took dozens of hostages to Gaza.
The Islamist movement has also kidnapped several dozen Israelis, foreigners and dual nationals. Israel has 150 hostages, while hundreds of people are still missing and bodies are being identified.
Israel responded by declaring war to destroy Hamas. The Israeli army announced Thursday that it had dropped around 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip for a total of 4,000 tons of explosives since Saturday.
More than 423,000 Palestinians have been displaced in recent days in the Gaza Strip to flee bombings, according to the UN, which has launched an emergency appeal for donations worth $294 million to meet “urgent needs.” Palestinian territories.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (OCHA), which notably operates schools in the Gaza Strip, welcomes around 64% of these displaced people in 102 of its establishments.
The Gaza Strip, a poor and cramped enclave crowded with 2.4 million inhabitants who have suffered a land, air and sea blockade since 2006, is now in a state of siege, deprived of water, electricity and electricity supplies. food, cut off by Israel.
In addition to the bombings, the Israeli army has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around Gaza and on the border with Lebanon, a country from which pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, regularly launches rockets against Israel.
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