2023-10-15 09:49:46
While awaiting its ground offensive, the Israeli army had already called on Friday the civilians of northern Gaza, nearly 1.1 million people, to move south. On Saturday, two secure corridors were opened. And on Saturday evening, an army spokesperson assured that the ground offensive would not start this Sunday for humanitarian reasons.
The Israeli army announced a new humanitarian corridor this Sunday for three hours. “The IDF will refrain from targeting the designated axis between 10 and 1 p.m.,” wrote Avichay Adraee on to move south from the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City. »
#urgent Residents of Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, we have been calling on you over the past few days to leave Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip and head to the area south of Wadi Gaza, out of concern for your safety. I inform you that the IDF will refrain from targeting the designated axis between 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM. In order to… pic.twitter.com/7i7BajGHHr
– Avichay Adraee (@AvichaiAdraee) October 15, 2023
The Hamas attack killed more than 1,300 people, mostly civilians, including children, and at least 120 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. Additionally, hundreds of people remain missing, and bodies are still being identified. The Israeli response killed more than 2,200 people, including more than 700 children, in the Gaza Strip and injured more than 8,700, according to Hamas.
However, according to the Israeli army, the center of operations of the Palestinian Islamist movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, is in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave.
The international community is concerned about humanitarian conditions
Several voices have been raised within the international community to express their concern about this evacuation in an overpopulated territory which has been placed under strict siege since the Hamas attacks. On Saturday evening, US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States was working with the UN and countries in the Middle East “to ensure that innocent civilians have access to water, food and medical care. He also assured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of his “full support” in his efforts to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, “especially in Gaza”.
For its part, Beijing considered that Israel’s action in Gaza after the Hamas attack goes “beyond the realm of self-defense” and asked the Israeli government to “stop collectively punishing” the Gazans, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in comments broadcast on Sunday.
Brazilian President Lula and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi agreed on the need to authorize the entry of emergency humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to a press release from the Brazilian presidency.
Earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for “immediate” humanitarian access to this small strip of land, subject to an Israeli blockade for more than 15 years.
VIDEO. Gaza: “An evacuation of civilians impossible”, warns the UN Secretary General
On Saturday night, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the forced evacuation of more than 2,000 patients to overwhelmed facilities in southern Gaza could be “the equivalent of a prison sentence.” dead “. “Health structures are already at maximum capacity and are incapable of absorbing a considerable increase in the number of patients,” argued the UN agency.
The leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, on Saturday accused Israel of “war crimes” in Gaza and said he refused the “displacement” of the Palestinians. The Palestinian movement is for its part regularly accused by Israel of using civilians as human shields.
However, according to a UN estimate, more than 423,000 Palestinians have already left their homes, and 5,540 homes have been destroyed.
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