Gaza and Jerusalem CNN –
The Israeli military is calling on 1.1 million people in the northern Gaza Strip to immediately evacuate their homes as it appears to prepare to step up retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks.
Israeli warplanes continued to bomb the narrow coastal enclave controlled by Hamas on Friday. Civilians in Gaza stuffed their belongings into cars, taxis and pickup trucks and rushed south en masse. Those who had no other choice went and carried what they could.
Images on social media on Friday showed Israel Defense Forces dropping leaflets from planes urging Gazans to head south or risk further danger.
“In the following days, the IDF will continue its activities in Gaza City and will make extensive efforts to prevent harm to civilians,” the IDF warned. “For your own safety and the safety of your families, go south and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields.”
Israeli forces also conducted local raids in Gaza to search for clues to the whereabouts of about 150 hostages held by Hamas in the area.
The United Nations and several humanitarian groups have sharply criticized Israel’s evacuation order.
“After days of air strikes, Israeli forces have ordered Palestinians in Gaza City and its surrounding areas to move to the south of the territory,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a Security Council meeting on the conflict on Friday.
“Relocating more than a million people through a densely populated war zone to a place without food, water or shelter while the entire area is under siege is extremely dangerous – and in some cases simply impossible,” he said.
In addition to the United Nations, humanitarian organizations including the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International have called on Israel to lift its order.
Forcing Gaza civilians to relocate would amount to “the war crime of forced displacement,” the Norwegian Refugee Council said.
Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Palestinians fled Gaza City on Friday after Israel called for the immediate relocation of 1.1 million people along the Strip.
Mohammed Talatene/Picture Alliance/Getty Images
Humanitarian groups have warned that the Israeli military’s evacuation order for Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip violates international law.
UN officials were initially told on Thursday that the relocation should take place within 24 hours. However, Israel has since acknowledged that the mass migration order will take time, and IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN on Friday that any deadline “could slip.”
Some Gazans remained in place nonetheless, telling CNN that they felt nowhere was safe.
Refaat Alareer, 44, a literature professor in Gaza City, told CNN that he and his family see no choice but to stay in the north – despite Israel’s warning.
“We’re hanging in there,” said Alareer, who has six children.
“Many people don’t evacuate because it’s impossible. Because we have nowhere else to go. Because Israel is bombing everywhere.”
Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
A man reacts in front of a burning, collapsed building following the Israeli bombing in Gaza City on October 11.
The last six days of airstrikes on Gaza are just “the beginning,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, announcing that there would be further retaliation.
“I’m telling you, it’s just the beginning. I won’t give you any more details, but it’s just the beginning,” he said in a brief press conference.
Israel has massed hundreds of thousands of troops, reservists and military equipment at the border as it intensifies its siege and airstrikes on the enclave. However, it is unclear whether and when Israel plans a possible ground attack on Gaza.
Israel has also cut off access to essential goods such as electricity, food, water and fuel to the Gaza Strip, prompting UN experts to warn that residents are at risk of starvation and call for the opening of a humanitarian corridor for basic supplies.
Jordanian and Egyptian officials are exerting “diplomatic and political pressure on the Israeli government to allow the safe transport of aid to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing,” which connects Gaza with Egypt, a senior Jordanian official told CNN on Thursday.
While the Egyptian side of the Rafah border is open, the source told CNN that the Palestinian side of the border is “not functional” after several Israeli airstrikes and that Jordanians and Egyptians are waiting for security clearance from Israel to allow trucks to cross without threat of strike.
A senior U.S. State Department official also said Friday that the U.S. is pressuring Egypt and Israel to allow U.S. citizens and foreigners stuck in the Gaza Strip to use the border crossing to escape.
The United Arab Emirates has sent a plane carrying urgent medical aid to the Egyptian city of Al-Arish to take them to Gaza, state news agency WAM reported. However, it is unclear how the aid will cross the border.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
The United Nations has warned that targeting innocent civilians and withholding vital supplies is prohibited under international law.
Israel remained steadfast in its response.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN: “We are at war with Hamas and will not allow anything into the Gaza Strip that supports Hamas’s ability to fight.” If it’s about the price of inconvenience to the population, then so be it so.”
On Thursday, Israel Energy Minister Israel Katz said supplies to the Gaza Strip would remain disrupted until all hostages held by Hamas were released.
Atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel last weekend sparked international outrage and escalated the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Hamas militants broke through the heavily fortified border in a coordinated attack, indiscriminately killing men, women and children and bringing up to 150 hostages back to Gaza.
More than 1,300 people were killed and thousands more injured in Israel.
Israel’s response was swift and relentless, sending warplanes to reduce streets and houses in Gaza to rubble.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the Israeli bombings killed more than 1,900 people, including over 600 children.
“The killing of children must stop,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder said in a statement.
“The images and stories are clear: children with terrible burns, mortar wounds and lost limbs. And the hospitals are completely overwhelmed to treat them.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
The Vatican’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Pietro Parolin, has called on Israel to show “proportionality.”
Parolin told Vatican News that the Hamas attack on Israel was “inhumane” but that the “legitimate defense should not harm civilians,” according to a transcript of the interview.
Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images
Smoke rises during an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, October 12.
Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian youth carries bread amid the rubble of the city center of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli shelling on October 10.
More than 432,000 Palestinians have also been displaced by the conflict and airstrikes have hit at least 88 educational institutions, according to the U.N. Palestine Relief Agency.
The evidence of this warfare was on display just outside the blockaded enclave, where a massive mobilization of Israeli troops, armored vehicles, ammunition trucks and other military equipment is being prepared for the next phase of Israel’s response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks.
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
An IDF artillery soldier covers his ears as a shell is fired into Gaza near Netivot, Israel, Oct. 11.
Previous Israeli ground offensives in 2008 and 2014 resulted in heavy casualties among Israeli soldiers. A key difference this time is that Hamas militants have captured such a large number of hostages.
Saturday’s bloody attack also demonstrated that Hamas has displayed a level of military prowess and barbarism that goes beyond what it has previously displayed.
A CNN analysis of videos released by Hamas and its allies shows militants trained for the attack for months and at at least six locations in Gaza.
Further evidence of the brutality of the attack has emerged: the Israeli prime minister’s office released three photos showing two babies whose bodies were burned beyond recognition, as well as the body of a third infant covered in blood.
However, Hamas on Thursday “strongly” denied its involvement in the killing of children, saying the allegations had been “unethically and unprofessionally” covered by the media.
Testimony from several survivors and eyewitnesses has detailed the scale and nature of atrocities committed by Hamas, as well as the staggering number of deaths and prisoners.