Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza yesterday in a mass exodus ahead of a full-scale invasion by Israeli troops in retaliation for last weekend’s attack by Hamas terrorists.
Families in cars, trucks and donkey carts loaded with their possessions packed the road heading southwards from Gaza City before the 4pm local time deadline given by Israel to evacuate.
Israel had ordered 1.1 million residents – half the population of the 25-mile coastal strip – to leave using two “safe corridor” evacuation routes before its ground offensive to destroy Hamas.
But many Palestinians claim Israeli airstrikes have hit vehicles fleeing south.
The BBC Verify service reported that a strike on a convoy using one of the designated routes on Friday night killed at least 12 people, including children as young as two.
Last night the Israeli military said it has prepared a “co-ordinated” offensive in the Gaza Strip involving air, ground and naval forces.
Meanwhile, an Israeli shell landed among a group of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon, killing Issam Abdallah, a Reuters videographer, and leaving six other journalists injured.
In a statement on its website last night, the Israeli army said it was “preparing to implement a wide range of offensive operative plans”.
A spokesman said it would strike Gaza City “very soon”.
Meanwhile, Israel’s air force has said it killed two top commanders of the Hamas group within 24 hours in a wave of airstrikes.
One of them, Ali Qadhi, led the cross-border attack on Israeli settlements on Saturday last week. He had been arrested by Israel in 2005 for the kidnapping and murder of civilians before being released in 2011 in a prisoner exchange.
© Shutterstock FeedThe Israeli military also said its troops conducted raids into Gaza on Friday to battle militants and hunt for traces of some 150 people – including men, women and children – who were kidnapped by Hamas last weekend.
More than 1,300 people were killed in Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers last weekend. It was the worst attack on civilians in Israel’s history.
Israeli forces have retaliated by putting the Hamas-run Gaza Strip under siege and bombarding it with air strikes.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the death toll has reached more than 2,200, including 724 children and 458 women, and nearly 10,000 wounded.
The United Nations has urged Israel to withdraw its evacuation order, warning of “devastating humanitarian consequences”.
The UN refugee agency for Palestinians expressed concern for those who could not leave, “particularly pregnant women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities”, saying they must be protected.
The agency also called for Israel to not target civilians, hospitals, schools, clinics and UN locations.
It was not clear how many Palestinians remained in north Gaza by yesterday afternoon, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “What we know is that hundreds of thousands of people have fled and that one million people have been displaced in total in one week,” she said.
Israel has cut all movement in and out of Gaza, with food, fuel and water supplies running out. One hospital, the Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, has been using ice-cream trucks as makeshift morgues.
Foreign citizens were allowed to leave Gaza and cross into Egypt yesterday following a deal agreed by Egypt, Israel and the United States. But, fearing a mass exodus of Palestinians, Egyptian authorities erected temporary blast walls on their side of the crossing, which has been closed for days because of Israeli air strikes, their officials said.
Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force was brought in to evacuate UK citizens from Israel.
The Foreign Office confirmed that two flights had left the country, with more expected in the days ahead. One was a commercial charter flight, while an RAF A400M transport plane was also used.
Israel said the military would take “extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians” and that residents would be allowed to return when the war is over.
An Israeli military spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, said the evacuation was aimed at keeping civilians safe and preventing Hamas from using them as human shields.
He urged people in the targeted areas to leave immediately and to return “only when we tell them that it is safe to do so”.
But Palestinians and some Egyptian officials claim Israel’s ultimate aim is to push Gaza’s people out through the southern border with Egypt.
A video yesterday emerged showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting troops near Gaza. He asked them: “You ready for the next stage? The next stage is coming.”
US President Joe Biden said his country was working with Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the UN to provide humanitarian support for Gaza.
He wrote on social media that the US was working to “create conditions needed to resume the flow of assistance and advocate for the upholding of the law of war”.
Lord Malloch-Brown, former deputy secretary general of the UN, warned that a strike on Gaza “risks a massive loss of life” and would “play into Hamas’s hands”.
Orly Goldschmidt, spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy to the UK, insisted that Israel was not targeting civilians, but admitted that innocent people would be casualties of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
She said: “There will be innocent people who will pay tragically with their life, but this is a state of war and we have to prevent anyone from harming us again.”
‘I grew up in paradise. It is now hell’: Israelis in no mood for ceasefires or talks
The violence in Gaza has been accompanied by deadly clashes at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, raising fears of war spreading to another front.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has shown support of Hamas, said it had hit five Israeli outposts on the Israel-Lebanon border with guided missiles and shells.
Meanwhile, thousands of people yesterday gathered for pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the UK, including in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester. A gathering in London attracted a crowd of thousands, with police threatening to arrest anyone showing support for Hamas.
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