2023-10-13 16:28:38
The Israeli Army told United Nations agencies last night that the inhabitants of the northern Gaza Strip be evacuated within 24 hours and head south. “It is a war zone, we are trying to give them time,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari, without specifying when there might be an attack. Hamas called on Gazans to disobey the order.
Added to this is that in the last few hours Israel denounced that Hamas is installing barriers to stop the evacuation of civilians to the south of Gaza, preventing the transfer of 1.1 million Palestinians.
“Hamas is setting up barricades and barriers to prevent Gazans from leaving,” Hagari said during a conference with journalists. To which he added: “Hamas is trying to prevent the evacuation to use civilians as a human shield.”
A message for the entire population
The Israeli evacuation order applies to the entire population, including those civilians who have been sheltered in UN schools and health centers, said the spokesman for the organization’s secretary general, Stéphane Dujarric.
However, the UN considers that an evacuation of these proportions is “impossible” without having “devastating humanitarian consequences.”
It should be taken into account that the Gaza Strip is only 41 km long and 10 km wide. It is an enclave of 360 km2 delimited by the Mediterranean Sea, Israel and Egypt and 2.3 million Palestinians live there. Furthermore, the Hamas offensive towards Israel began last weekend in the north.
Palestinian refugees
Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced that it “relocated its central operations center and international staff to a location in southern Gaza to continue its humanitarian operations.”
At the same time, he urged authorities to “protect all civilians in UNRWA shelters, including schools.” “They are UN facilities. They must be protected at all times and must never be attacked,” they recalled.
According to the United Nations, the displaced within Gaza now reach 423,000 people, while access to food and essential services – health, water or basic sanitation – are regarding to collapse.
For now, it has not been possible to open a humanitarian corridor to Egypt or a buffer zone within Gaza to protect the civilian population. The Egyptian authorities made both proposals, but the first was rejected by Hamas and the second by Israel.
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