Israel tells UN to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip within 24 hours
The Israeli Ministry of Defense and the IDF notified the UN just before midnight local time that Palestinians living north of Wadi Gaza should evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip in the next 24 hours, according to UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric and another source with direct knowledge.
The big picture: More than 1 million Palestinians live in this area. The message could be a signal that the Israeli military is preparing for an imminent ground operation.
The sources told Axios that the IDF's reason for the notification was in order for civilians not to be hurt by the military's actions and operations.
More than 1,530 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis have been killed, thousands have been injured, and hundreds of thousands of others have been displaced since the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas began. Hamas is believed to be holding about 150 hostages in Gaza.
Driving the news: The Israeli military has carried out a heavy bombardment of Gaza since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Saturday.
It's also imposed a "complete siege" on the enclave, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
What they're saying: The IDF said in an announcement to Gaza City residents that they should all evacuate and move south of Wadi Gaza.
It will "continue to operate significantly in Gaza City" in the coming days and Israeli forces will "make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians," the IDF said.
"You will be able to return to Gaza only when another announcement permitting it is made," the IDF said.
The IDF urged residents to distance themselves from Hamas, which it said was using them as human shields.
It warned civilians not to approach the area of a security fence with Israel because it said Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels "underneath homes and buildings and populated with innocent Gazan civilians."
Meanwhile, Dujarric told Axios: "Today, just before midnight local time, team leaders of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Department of Safety and Security in Gaza were informed by their liaison officers in the Israeli military that the entire population of Gaza north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within the next 24 hours.
"This amounts to approximately 1.1 million people. The same order applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities – including schools, health centers and clinics," Dujarric said.
"The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences," Dujarric added.
"The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation."
State of play: UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke twice on Thursday night with Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan and said he wants to get clarification at the highest political level about Israel's request to evacuate the population from the northern Gaza strip, a UN source said.
Erdan in a statement called the "UN's response to Israel's early warning to the residents of Gaza is shameful!"
"For many years, the UN has turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas and its use of the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as a hiding place for its weapons and murder," Erdan said.
"Now, instead of standing by Israel, whose citizens were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists and who tries to minimize harm to those not involved, it preaches to Israel. It is better for the UN to focus now on returning the hostages, condemning Hamas, and supporting Israel's right to defend itself," he said.
Genocide unfolding.
This is what happens when you give countries like Israel a pass . They just take it as a green light to massacre civilians
This is the approach that will minimize civilian casualties. Forcing Hamas to move will diminish their ability to hide behind civilians like they have been doing. Doing so on short notice will prevent them from moving their weapons, as all of the tunnels have been obliterated in the past couple days.
You can't evacuate 1 million people in 24 hours, much less when they don't have anywhere to go. Gaza is fully blockaded and they can't leave.
Read the article. Only North Gaza is being evacuated.
It's over a million people, in one of the densest areas of earth, without public transport, petrol, electricity, water and means of mass communication. In addition to that, all border crossings are closed, and there's not exactly 1 million+ empty houses in the rest of Gaza.
They're deliberately giving an impossible ultimatum to justify scores of civilian deaths before the fact.
Agreed. This is really to minimize the collateral damage amongst political allies, the UN workers, there is no expectation a million people are going to move in 24 hours. Even if they all left their house at the same time, the streets would be clogged, it would be nearly impossible even if this became an Olympic event. Take any population of a million people, not all of them are young able-bodied physically able, and they have belongings they don't want to give up. It's going to take time to move a million people.
We read the article too bro. The thing is it’s an impossible request and they know it. They are just saying it to look good to absolute morons like you
No, the approach that would minimise civilian casualties is to just not mass bomb a city.
Like even if they COULD evacuate, you think the Hams fighters wouldn't just go with them?
This does nothing but give Israel a free pass to commit mass murder because they gave prior warning.
So they're asking the UN to do the ethnic cleansing for them.
So maybe never then?
That would be better than letting Israel kill them all.
Hamas has to be defeated first before they can return
So.. never then. Even if they miraculously kill every single living human being whose associated with Hamas today, tomorrow everyone who knew those killed will make Hamas version 2 electric boogaloo, wars of ideology never end.
You are a genocide apologist. Unfortunately you have even less shame than you have brains, so I'm sure you sleep great at night you sick fuck.
Anyone want to bet on whether this will be before or after the Israeli settlers arrive?
What Hamas did is horrific and should not be tolerated. At the same time, Israel is not blameless either, they have been engaging in acts which amount to cultural genocide for a long time. Israel using this war as a casus belli to engage in further settlement expansion would not surprise me at all. Like most wars, this whole situation is shit all over and lots of innocent people are going to die during the dick swinging of the powerful few.
Israel had settlers in Gaza before 2005. They were forcibly evicted as part of an effort to help establish Gaza as a valid independent state.
Gazans then elected Hamas and started lobbing rockets at Israel.
And now that Israel is looking for a reason to wipe Gaza off the map there won’t be an issue sending in settlers.
The long game of funding extremist orgs is paying off for right wingers in Israel.
I'll wait to get angry about things if they actually happen.
If Israel really wanted Gaza wiped off the map with no regard to civilian casualties, it would already be gone. I certainly would like to see significantly more restraint though.
It would be gone if Israel didn’t care about the geopolitical pr associated with such an action. Now that right wingers have funded and egged on the extremists enough, the militants are giving the war mongers in the Israeli government the perfect causus belli to get the result they want while posturing as the good guys.
This isn’t even a modern tactic. Rome got the Samnites to declare war in the 400s BC by setting up settler colonies in Samnite territory then rushing in to defend their citizens when Samnite warriors went to defend their territory.
Much like Rome, right wing Israeli politicians are bloodthirsty expansionists while still having the sociopathic gall to hide their barbarism behind decorum.
Hamas had popular support back in the 90's and we (royal) almost had peace without the international community's help. Except a zionist killed Israeli PM Rabin in '95.
In '97 the US declared Hamas terrorists (because they could use the Fatah to get what they wanted).
Israel removed all the settlers from the strip, why would they put them back in? Can we wait until they actually do things before throwing out wild accusations? There's enough stuff to criticise already without making stuff up and getting upset about it.
This is going to get ugly.
i hope Israel has some sympathy for civilians.
The IDF gives zero fucks. At the rate they're going it wouldn't surprise me if they told the civilians to evacuate south and then hit Gaza from the Southeast and pushed up.
They should be charged with war crimes but the U.S. backs them unconditionally.
Pretty sure the IDF actually wants to kill Palestinian civilians. They are not merely indifferent.
this is just power grab for netanyahoo.
should call this votes liberation war.
I'm not so sure, I suspect than once the dust has settled Bibi is toast. Maybe then he can be held accountable for his crimes.
The Israeli army at least tries to not kill civilians. It will happen though, because Hamas purposefully hinders the civilians to leave the area they were told to evacuate.
DON'T BELIEVE FUCKHEADS LIKE THIS ASSHOLE ABOVE, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
Here's just a couple examples of why that is bullshit, and this poster is either a liar or a willfully ignorant moron.
IDF Soldier Intentionally Shoots Journalist in the Head: (https://theintercept.com/2022/09/20/shireen-abu-akleh-killing-israel/)
IDF Soldiers Shoot 12 Year Old Boy: (https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_shoot_dead_12_year_old_palestinian_boy_in_qalqilya)
IDF Soldiers Shoot 16 Year Old Boy IN THE BACK: (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/6/palestinian-teen-killed-in-clashes-with-israeli-armed-forces)
IDF Soldiers Shoot Fleeing Civillians: (https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/04/gaza-israeli-soldiers-shoot-and-kill-fleeing-civilians)
I could keep going, but hopefully everyone else who reads this gets the point. The IDF has commit serious, intentional, murderous war crimes including on:
Any endangered group you can think of, the IDF has killed them indiscriminately.
UN:
And Israel’s response:
Holy shit dude…they’re worried about getting their staff out, Jesus fucking Christ.
Karma is a bitch Israel, you have doomed yourself.