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The Israeli military called on Friday to evacuate Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip to southern Gaza, a move the United Nations said would affect 1.1 million people and could lead to a “catastrophic situation”.
The warning came on the seventh day of Israel’s war against Hamas, the militant group that rules the enclave. Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza after armed gunmen stormed into Israel on Saturday, killing more than 1,200 civilians and soldiers and kidnapping dozens more.
Israel has cut off water, electricity and fuel supplies to the blockaded area, home to more than 2 million people.
“The Israel Defense Forces calls for the evacuation of all civilians from Gaza City. . . . For their own safety and protection, they are leaving their homes and migrating south to the southern areas . . . to the Gaza River, as shown on the map,” IDF spokesman Jonathan Kang Ricks said in an online briefing.
The U.N. earlier said it had been informed of the plans by an Israeli military liaison officer, adding that the same order applied to its staff in Gaza and the tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering in U.N. facilities, including schools, health centers and clinics. . It called on Israel to revoke the order.
“The United Nations believes that such a campaign cannot be carried out without devastating humanitarian consequences,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement early Friday.
The United Nations said team leaders from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Ministry of Security and Security in Gaza “learned from the Israeli military’s liaison officer that all Gaza’s population north of the Wadi should be relocated to southern Gaza” over the next 24 hours. Inside”.
“The United Nations strongly calls for the revocation of any such order, if confirmed, to avoid turning the tragedy that has occurred into a catastrophic situation,” Dujarric said.
Israel this week mobilized 360,000 reservists in response to the Oct. 7 attack and ahead of an expected ground invasion of Gaza, which Hamas has ruled since 2007. Gaza residents are unable to leave due to strict Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on travel in and out, as well as an Israeli military blockade.
Gaza’s health ministry said Thursday that the enclave’s health system has begun to collapse as the death toll from Israeli attacks continues to rise, with 1,354 Palestinians killed and 6,049 injured since the military escalation began.
It released photos showing what appeared to be seriously injured children being treated in crowded hospital settings, including on the floor. Gaza’s main power station ran out of fuel this week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said October 7 was “the most painful day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust” as he swore in his new war cabinet in parliament on Thursday, warning of “difficult days.” Waiting.”
IDF Chief of Staff Hertz Halevi said on Thursday that Israel was attacking Gaza with “full force” and warned that “Gaza will never be the same” after the current war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Jerusalem that Israel had the right to defend itself “to ensure this never happens again” but also urged Israel to take “all possible precautions to avoid harming civilians”.
The surprise weekend attack by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen was the largest massacre of Israelis since 1948, traumatizing the country and catching one of the Middle East’s most powerful militaries by surprise.
Amid criticism of its lack of preparation, the Israel Defense Forces late Thursday released a video showing the first day of elite military commandos rescuing about 250 people from a military outpost in southern Israel that had been seized by Hamas Soldiers occupy. s attack. The Financial Times was unable to independently verify the Israeli military’s claims.
Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv
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