Hamas tells Gaza City residents to stay put after Israel orders evacuation

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 314 points – First Thing: Hamas tells Gaza City residents to stay put after Israel orders evacuation
theguardian.com

Hamas has called on Palestinians to stay in their homes after Israel issued sweeping evacuation orders for almost half of Gaza’s more than 2.3 million people ahead of an expected ground offensive.

The Hamas authority for refugee affairs today told residents in the north of the territory to “remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war waged by the occupation”.

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Translation: "If all the civilians leave, we won't be able to use them as human shields anymore."

Edit: It's also true that Israel has made it extraordinarily difficult to leave. They are not the good guys, here. But there are no good guys here except for the civilians, and we know Hamas is a terrorist organization that is perfectly willing to use them as human shields.

There's nowhere for them to go...

Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and Israel just told them to fit in half as much space at a time when they have no fuel, water, or electricity.

It's fucking impossible. And if they actually move, the Palestinians are smart enough to know they will never be able to access that land again.

Hell, Hamas is the only ones with the resources to move

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Yes, but that's only the convenient half for the pro-Israeli media.

The inconvenient other half is that they have blocked EVERY possible exit from Gaza, including telling the Egyptians to not allow anyone out.

So, no food, fuel, electricity, medicine, water, or shelters. One of the MOST densely populated regions in the whole world, and they were just expected to what? Walk down the strip to sit in the 'safe' bombed out rubble?

Would they be allowed a "right of return" afterwards?

No good options for those residents. So you can use this to rightfully condem Hamas because it suits their political objectives, but that doesn't change the fact about the rest of what I've laid out.

So what would you do? Stay in your home and risk death? Or become homeless and only have a marginally less chance of death?

That’s exactly what I keep thinking about, to hell with what the controlling forces say, the two options in front of those residents aren’t really options. I can’t wrap my head around what that must be like.

Question: is it actually true that Israel doesn't want Palestinians to leave via the southern border to Egypt? I've heard on the news twice (BBC Hardtalk and somewhere else I can't recall now) that the opposite is true. From what I've heard, Israel wants the Palestinians to leave, but Egypt does not want to allow them into their country because it would be a huge burden to feed, house, and police a million+ angry refugees.

It also makes more sense from Israel's point of view to get the Palestinians out of Gaza. Israel's greatest danger is, and always has been, the opprobrium of the international community if they kill too many civilians. It would be a huge victory for Israel if the civilians all leave, which is why Hamas wants them to stay!

That's correct. Egypt does not want to take the Palestinians.

Israel just want all Palestinian land, no matter how. If they leave, great. If they're all dead, fine. All they care about is the land. Of course Israel would prefer them to just leave and not be their issue anymore, but they caused the issue driving Palestinians into Gaza in the first place, and could just as easily let them out again.

Israel unitarily pulled out of Gaza in the mid 2000s. If all they wanted was to take all the land they could do so.

Answer:

Israel keeps saying it's open, but bombed it three times in 24 hrs too...

Israel on Tuesday dropped bombs next to the only border crossing allowing civilians to flee Gaza after the Israeli military directed Palestinians, looking to escape air strikes in the war against Hamas, toward the crossing.

Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an IDF spokesman, urged Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip for Egypt early Tuesday, with the Times of Israel reporting he said: "Rafah crossing is still open. Anyone who can get out, I would advise them to get out."

This airstrike was the third Israeli attack on the crossing in the last 24 hours and consisted of four missiles, Al Jazeera reported, citing officials from the local Egyptian group, Sinai for Human Rights.

https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-bombed-only-crossing-allowing-people-flee-gaza-palestine-egypt-2023-10?op=1

So the crossing is open on the Egypt side, but complete rubble and inaccessible on the Palestinian side

The Egyptian side of the crossing is open, but the Palestinian side is “non-functional” following multiple Israeli airstrikes earlier this week, a senior Jordanian official told CNN Thursday, adding that “the Jordanians and Egyptians are waiting for security clearance from the Israelis to allow (aid) trucks to cross without threat of another airstrike.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/egypt-rafah-crossing-gaza-palestinians-mime-intl/index.html

Israel is telling them to do something that's literally impossible.

The inconvenient other half is that they have blocked EVERY possible exit from Gaza, including telling the Egyptians to not allow anyone out.

Er... that's not true. They were initially telling Palestinians to go to Egypt. Egypt does not want them in the Sinai and told Israel to provide safe passage through Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-bomb-rafah-crossing-to-egypt-after-telling-gazans-to-flee-through-it/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/rafah-border-gaza-egypt-israel-1.6994234

Yes, it's true that Egypt does not want to allow a mass exodus of refugees.

It's also true that Israel has been bombing that area as well.

So not sure what your point is.

It seems like the airstrikes damaging the crossing is a more recent development that I wasn't aware of. Your CBC article and the CNN article posted above are only an hour old. Your Times of Israel article says this:

The Rafah crossing was open for periods Tuesday morning, but Egypt only allowed through Palestinians who’d already gotten authorization to leave the Strip.

On the Rafah crossing’s Facebook page, Gazans lamented the decision to not open the crossing for anyone wishing to leave, with one user writing: “Interior Ministry, this is not the time to put someone in danger who survived a bombing and miraculously reached the crossing. We cannot return to death.”

In this case staying put will likely save more lives than trying to move 40k people per hour within 24 hours.

Not even Hamas themselves are saying they were doing it in order to prevent loss of lives during the evacuation.

A broken clock is right twice a day

That depends on wether Israelies will just level the whole place. One nuke would be enough. They have nukes and they seem to be unhinged.

Nah, Israel wouldn't nuke it. Even they can't convince citizens to resettle there if it's been irradiated.

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Israeli translation: if you don't get the fuck out so we can capture and resettle half your city we are more than happy, to commit mass murder instead.

to commit mass murder instead.

Mass murder like attacking a festival and killing 260+ people?

Mass murder like threatening to kill 1.1 Million civilians.

Translation this is your land we have nothing left to lose because of systematic destruction of our land and Culture.

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