According to the UN, Israel has warned over one million Palestinians to flee to the south of Gaza, as the nation continues to mobilize its defense troops to the border in preparation for a ground invasion.The United Nations has declared it is “impossible” for Palestinians to go to the south of Gaza in the next 24 hours, after civilians were told to leave by Israel’s military.
It occurred as the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency said Gaza was deteriorating into a “hell hole” on the verge of collapse.
The evacuation order is Israel’s most direct indication yet that it is prepared to start a ground invasion in Gaza, nearly a week after Hamas’ surprise assault.
It also began dropping Arabic-language leaflets into the Gaza Strip, advising residents in the north to move south across the Wadi Gaza, a section of coastal marshland with a river running through the middle.
UN officials 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,” according to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric in a statement released in New York.
“This amounts to approximately 1.1 million people,” he noted, representing over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
The United Nations, according to Monsieur Dujarric, “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences”.
It came after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that “this evacuation is for your own safety,” but Hamas dismissed the warning as “fake propaganda” and advised Palestinians not to “fall for it.”
The United Nations has requested that the order be revoked in order to prevent turning “what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas informed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman on Friday that he “rejects the forced displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza.
He called such an occurrence a “second Nakba,” alluding to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 conflict that preceded Israel’s establishment, and urged humanitarian corridors must be opened in the blockaded coastal enclave quickly to avoid a humanitarian tragedy.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has appealed for the international community’s “immediate intervention” to avert a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
“We don’t have the resources to evacuate the sick and injured in our hospitals, as well as the elderly and disabled,” a representative for the humanitarian organization stated.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), local health authorities in Gaza have notified WHO representatives that evacuating vulnerable hospital patients from northern Gaza within 24 hours is difficult.
“There are critically ill people whose injuries mean that their only chance of survival is to be on life support, such as mechanical ventilation,” said WHO spokeswoman Tarik Jasarevic.
“Moving those people is effectively a death sentence.” It is beyond unfair to ask health staff to do so.”
Sunak expresses sympathy as the death toll rises.
Earlier, Rishi Sunak urged Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to “protect ordinary Palestinians” while the country fights Hamas.
In his phone chat with Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Sunak “reiterated that the UK stands side by side with Israel in fighting terror,” according to a spokesman for Number 10, adding that Hamas should “never again be able to perpetrate atrocities against the Israeli people.”