The Israeli military has ordered the immediate evacuation of 1.1 million people in Gaza ahead of an anticipated ground offensive aimed at eradicating Hamas.
Panic spread among beleaguered residents of northern Gaza after they were told on Friday to move to the south of the blockaded territory within 24 hours, where food and water were running out.
Israel’s armed forces directed residents of Gaza City to evacuate “for their own safety and protection” but Hamas told Palestinians to “remain steadfast in your homes”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas after terrorists stormed out of the territory last Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including babies and children and young people at a music festival.
United Nations agencies said the evacuation order applied to all their staff and to hundreds of thousands of civilians who have taken shelter in UN schools and other facilities since Israel launched round-the-clock reprisal air strikes.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. It was estimated that 40,000 people would have to leave each hour.
More than 1,400 have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its retaliatory air strikes, Palestinian health officials said. The death toll in Israel since Saturday stands at more than 1,300.
Hamas terrorists are believed to have taken more than 150 hostages into Gaza and claimed today that 13 had been killed in Israeli air strikes.
British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said “it seems very likely” that Britons were being held by Hamas.
Mr Shapps defended Israel’s right to defend itself as he detailed the deployment of Royal Navy vessels and RAF surveillance aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean. He insisted the 24-hour evacuation order was being correctly applied with “advance warning of military action in order that people can move out of the way”, delivered by leaflet and phone messages in Gaza.
“Leave these Hamas terrorists to come in and slaughter people again? Or deal with them once and for all? And the fact that Israel gives notice… is in stark contrast (to Hamas),” he told BBC Breakfast.
He added that a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels had been shown videos and photographs of babies beheaded by the Palestinian terrorists. “I think Israel finds itself in a very difficult situation, and to be clear: Israel needs to act within international law just like any other nation… but Israel will also obviously need to deal with these Hamas terrorists.”
Aid agencies, however, said that any warnings could fail to get through to civilians in Gaza after power, mobile and internet cables, as well as water, were cut off by Israel, which said its blockade would continue until the hostages were returned. In other developments:
Mr Netanyahu’s office released shocking photographs of murdered infants “so that the world will see just a fraction of the horrors that Hamas carried out”.
More demonstrations were expected in London this weekend and four Jewish schools in north London said they would stay closed today amid a surge of anti-Semitic incidents in the capital.
Rishi Sunak was in Sweden for a summit of northern European countries which was set to be dominated by the Middle East crisis. The Prime Minister confirmed the UK was deploying the Royal Navy and RAF to the eastern Mediterranean, to “support efforts to ensure regional stability and prevent further escalation”.
After delivering a robust message of solidarity on a visit to Israel, US secretary of state Antony Blinken continued a hurried tour of the Middle East seeking to avert an expanded regional conflict as Iran stepped up its own diplomatic efforts in support of Hamas.
Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City, said there was no way more than one million people could be safely moved so quickly. “Forget about food, forget about electricity, forget about fuel. The only concern now is just if ... you’re going to live,” she said. “What will happen to our patients?” she asked.
“We have wounded, we have elderly, we have children who are in hospitals,” adding that many medics were refusing to evacuate and abandon patients.
Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said the armed forces would operate with “significant force” in Gaza in the coming days and was urging civilians “who are not our enemy” to get out of the way.
A survivor of a massacre by Hamas at the Kfar Aza kibbutz, close to Gaza, said an Israeli ground invasion was now justified. Neta Portal, 22, was shot six times in her legs. She told the BBC: “They were shooting people. They were shooting the kids. And the people were shouting ‘Please no, please no’.”
The mother-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, has asked “where is people’s humanity?” in a tearful video from Gaza. She travelled from her home in Scotland last week to visit family with her husband. Elizabeth El-Nakla said: “Everybody from Gaza is moving towards where we are. One million people, no food, no water — and still they’re bombing them.”
