Israel orders Gaza Strip evacuations; Hamas tells residents to stay put

Israel has indicated that it is readying a ground invasion of the besieged territory, a move aimed at ending the rule of Hamas, the militant group that controls the area and that launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on Saturday, killing more than 1,300 civilians and soldiers, and trucking scores of hostages into Gaza.

But, with exits to Israel and Egypt shut, the retaliatory military operations have effectively turned the narrow 25-mile long Gaza Strip into a death trap. More than 1,500 people have already died in the bombing campaign, a third of them children, and another 6,600 have been wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

“In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City,” the Israel Defense Forces said, adding that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels beneath civilian homes and in heavily populated areas. “Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant did not respond directly to reporters when asked about the deadline for civilians to leave northern Gaza, but reiterated that Hamas hides among civilians, saying: “We need to separate them,” adding that “those that want to save their life, please go south.”

Hamas dismissed the warnings and told citizens to stay. “Our Palestinian people reject the threat made by the leaders of the occupation and its call for Gazans to leave their houses and leave to the south or to Egypt,” the group said, describing the evacuation order as “psychological war.”

Hamas has continued to fire rockets from Gaza into Israel throughout the crisis; most appear to have been intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system, though dozens have needed medical treatment.

The United Nations said that the evacuation that Israel was urging was not only unfeasible, but risked worsening an already dire situation. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” it said in a statement.

U.S. officials declined to criticize the Israeli order, but said Washington is seeking to work with Israel, the International Committee of the Red Cross and U.N. relief agencies to establish the safe zones, said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

“Everything about being in Gaza is dangerous,” the official said. “We think the best option is to establish a safe area.” No further details were offered and it was not clear how such a plan could be implemented in reality. In a statement, the ICRC said it would not be able to assist “in such a massive displacement of people in Gaza.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council, an international aid agency operating in the territory, said that Israel’s evacuation order, which came without clear guarantees of safety and return, “would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.”

In conversations with his staff in Gaza on Friday morning, James Elder, spokesman for UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, said the word “impossible” came up time and again, “in terms of, ‘It’s impossible for us to do this; they are asking the impossible.’ I was talking to people through tears,” he said. “These are resilient people who have been through a lot but are absolutely out of options.”

Children are “lying waiting in hospitals to get attention and now being told to move within the city,” he said. “It’s not logical. It’s not doable. Doctors will have to make decisions on who lives and who dies. When you’re talking about moving children with wounds of war or in the ICU — they can’t be moved, and that’s the demand.”

Elder now feared an “agonizing increase” in child deaths. “Parents are looking their kids in the eyes and knowing they cannot protect them,” he said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, whose ambulances have repeatedly been targeted by Israeli strikes, said Friday that the Ministry of Health had decided not to evacuate the area’s hospitals.

Decisions over whether to stay or go have divided families. One woman, a U.S. citizen who asked that her name not be shared, fearing for her security, said that her brother had refused to leave, and so she had packed his five children into the car and driven them to a friends’ already packed home in a safer neighborhood, on her way out of Gaza City.

The roads were busy, but not packed, she said. People moved by donkey cart, tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw) and car, all loaded with bags of clothing, mattresses, even a pair of cows. “A tuk-tuk would be carrying 15 people,” she said. “People are running red lights. No one is stopping.”

The bombing had been relentless around her home, she said. A building just over 100 feet away was destroyed, rocking her with the shock wave. “If I’m going to die, that’s fine, but I don’t want to live and see this,” she said.

Tensions are also high in the occupied West Bank, where Hamas has called for a “Day of Rage” on Friday in support of Gaza, and there have been demonstrations across the territory. At least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in the hour after Friday noon prayers, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Clashes with security forces were also reported following marches in support of Gaza.

With the latest deaths, 44 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers since Saturday, adding to the more than 200 killed this year in the West Bank, the highest annual toll in two decades.

In the midst of the crisis, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew from Israel to meet King Abdullah II of Jordan in Amman on Friday and discuss the growing crisis, including “efforts to secure the release of all hostages and prevent the conflict from widening,” State Department spokesman Matt Miller said.

Blinken “underscored that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination and discussed ways to address the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza while Israel conducts legitimate security operations to defend itself from terrorism,” Miller said.

But in a separate statement, Jordan’s king warned Israel against “any attempt to forcibly displace the Palestinians from all the Palestinian Territories or to cause their internal displacement, calling for preventing a spillover of the crisis into neighbouring countries and the exacerbation of the refugee issue.”

He also stressed the need to open humanitarian corridors to allow for the provision of food and medicine.

Blinken will go on to meetings in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. U.S. officials are hoping to convince allies who have sway with Iran and Hezbollah to refrain from entering the conflict. Officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

The IDF said Friday morning that it struck 750 military targets overnight, including compounds, guard posts and underground tunnels belonging to Hamas, as well as the residences of senior operatives.

Hamas’s military wing said Friday that 13 of its hostages had been killed by airstrikes within the past 24 hours. “Six of them were killed in separate locations in the northern governorates, and seven were killed in three different locations in the Gaza governorate,” the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement, which was not possible to independently verify. The whereabouts of the hostages, some of them toddlers, are not publicly known.

Egypt was one of several governments working “discreetly” to solve the issue, said Mohamed al-Oraibi, chairman of the Egyptian Foreign Relations Council, which is affiliated with the country’s Foreign Ministry.

But so far, the warring parties seemed determined to battle on. “There is a sort of determination in both sides that they have to keep this level of military exchange, and there is no need for talking about any steps to pave the way for a permanent cease-fire,” he said.

Loveluck reported from London, Claire Parker from Cairo. Loveday Morris in Jerusalem and Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to this report.