CNN –
The Israeli military has announced a six-hour deadline for Palestinians to flee south along certain roads in the Gaza Strip, as tens of thousands leave their homes under a strict evacuation order ahead of a possible Israeli ground attack.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned more than a million residents in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate on Friday as it massed troops and military equipment at the border and continued to bombard the area with relentless airstrikes in response to deadly Islamist attacks on October 7 militant group Hamas.
Even before the warning, more than 400,000 Palestinians had been internally displaced by last week’s fighting as conditions worsened within the bombed strip.
But the evacuation order and the prospect of a possible invasion were sharply criticized by human rights groups, including the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who warned that such a move could have “catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”
According to a statement by IDF Arab spokesman Avishay Adraee on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The IDF claimed that Hamas leaders had already taken measures to protect themselves from attacks in the region.
It is unclear how far the message has reached the site given the current power and internet outage.
When asked by CNN how this six-hour deadline was communicated to citizens in Gaza, IDF spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman said that “everyone in Gaza City now knows exactly what is happening.”
“They were notified in Arabic and in multiple languages on every available platform, both electronic and non-electronic. Everyone in Gaza City knows they have to go past Wadi Gaza.”
Spielman confirmed that the IDF had dropped leaflets to inform the people of Gaza about the IDF’s announcement.
However, CNN spoke to a UN relief agency school official, a medic and a journalist at the scene, all of whom were unaware of this latest warning on Saturday.
Meanwhile, CNN has geolocated and authenticated five videos from the site of a large explosion along one of the evacuation routes for civilians south of Gaza City.
The videos show many bodies amid a scene of widespread destruction. Some of these bodies are on a flatbed truck that was apparently used to transport people from Gaza City. There are several children among them. There are also a number of badly burned and damaged cars.
It is unclear what caused the widespread devastation; The explosion occurred on Friday afternoon on Salah al-Deen Street.
CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on any airstrikes at the same location.
Palestinian-Americans have been waiting for the Rafah border crossing into Egypt to open on Saturday after the US State Department sent guidance to families on Friday telling them it “may be open” on Saturday afternoon.
“They told everyone to be here at 12 p.m., it’s been almost two hours, no one showed up, no one is here to open the gates.” Haneen Okal, a New Jersey resident, waited with her three children, said.
“People are waiting at the Rafah border crossing, but it is not open and there is no clear instruction from the embassy,” said Mai Abushaaban, a 22-year-old from Houston who is in contact with her family at the border.
CNN has contacted the State Department and the US National Security Council for comment.
Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
After Israeli air strikes on October 13, 2023, Palestinians flee with their belongings to safer areas in Gaza City.
More than 2 million Palestinians – including over a million children – live in the 140-square-mile Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Images from Gaza showed a mass rush towards the south of the coastal enclave from Friday. Civilians crammed into cars, taxis, pickup trucks and even donkey carts. The streets were lined with snaking lines of vehicles strapped with suitcases and mattresses.
Those who had no other choice went and carried what they could. Some stayed there anyway, telling CNN they felt nowhere was safe.
Since the evacuation order was issued on Friday, 70 evacuees have been killed and 200 others injured in Israeli military airstrikes, Hamas’ media office told CNN.
Palestinian medical services and civil defense forces at the site of a rescue operation in the northern Gaza Strip came under Israeli attack on Saturday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Interior and National Security.
“Occupation forces are targeting civil defense teams and medical services early this Saturday morning as they work to rescue martyrs and wounded people from the Dahman family home in the northern Gaza Strip,” the ministry said in a statement.
Some health facilities in northern Gaza and Gaza City have said they will not comply with Israel’s evacuation orders because these “threats effectively act as a ‘death sentence’ for the thousands of injured and patients housed in these facilities.”
“There will be no response to evacuation threats and the medical teams will remain in their positions and carry out their humanitarian role and professional duty towards the patients and wounded,” Gaza’s state media office said in a statement on Saturday.
“We condemn the new crime of the occupation by threatening some health facilities in the city of Gaza and in the north and calling for their evacuation to the south of the Gaza Strip,” the statement continued.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement Saturday afternoon that it had received “orders” from Israeli forces to evacuate Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City by 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) on Saturday .
“Al-Quds Hospital, affiliated with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, provides life-saving services to large numbers of Palestinian patients and wounded, including critical cases in intensive care and children in kindergartens, in addition to hundreds of civilians.” have sought refuge in hospital,” the Red Crescent Society said.
“Therefore, the company cannot evacuate the hospital and is obliged, within the framework of its humanitarian mandate, to continue providing services to patients and the wounded.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
Saturday morning marked a week since Hamas’s unprecedented and bloody attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,300 people and captured civilian and military hostages now believed to be held in Gaza.
The surprise attack, widely referred to as Israel’s 9/11, saw waves of heavily armed Hamas fighters rampage through rural Israeli towns, kibbutzim and army bases.
In response, Israel ordered a “full siege” of Gaza, including blocking food, water and fuel, while also carrying out its heaviest airstrikes ever on the enclave.
International observers warn that the closure will result in civilians in Gaza dying from starvation, disease and a lack of medical care for the growing number of dying and wounded.
The United Nations has described the situation in Gaza as a matter of “life and death” and warned that supplies of clean water for the two million people there are dangerously low. The UN also warned of increasing risks of water-borne diseases.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) called on Israel on Saturday not to attack its shelters in Gaza, warning that many people, including pregnant women and the elderly or disabled, will not be able to to flee the area.
At least 2,215 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in an update on Saturday. This number includes 724 children.
An overwhelmed hospital in Gaza has resorted to using ice cream trucks from local factories as makeshift morgues to supplement overcrowded hospital morgues.
Dr. Yasser Khatab, a forensic pathologist at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said in a video message sent to CNN on Saturday that the hospital in Deir al-Balah was unable to accommodate the increasing number of deceased.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
Israel has massed hundreds of thousands of troops and military equipment at the border as it tightens its siege on the Gaza Strip. However, it is not clear what type of operation the IDF is preparing for and when it might take place.
Israel initially told UN officials on Thursday that the relocation of Gazans should take place within 24 hours. But Israel has since acknowledged that the mass migration order will take time, and IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said Friday that any deadline “could slip,” adding to growing uncertainty.
Another IDF spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, claimed Saturday, citing media reports, that Hamas was trying to prevent Palestinian civilians from evacuating “through messages and also checkpoints and stops on the ground.”
Asked by CNN whether the evacuation order indicated an impending ground attack, Conricus said the IDF would “assess the situation on the ground” and “look at how many civilians are still in the area… Once we see that the situation is significant “The extent to which hostilities will be permissible will then begin.”
The IDF also said Saturday that its warplanes had attacked headquarters used by Hamas militants, killing the head of the Hamas air force system in Gaza City, who the military claimed was “widely pro-terrorist leadership.” during the attack on Israel last week.
The IDF’s evacuation order sparked international concern and sharp criticism from some human rights groups, particularly as essential supplies run out and deaths rise in the isolated enclave from which residents say they have no escape.
“The order to evacuate 1.1 million people from the northern Gaza Strip violates the rules of war and basic humanity,” wrote OCHA chief Martin Griffiths in a statement late Friday. “Streets and houses (in Gaza) were reduced to rubble. There is no safe place to go.”
“Forcing frightened and traumatized civilians, including women and children, to move from one densely populated area to another, without even a lull in fighting and without humanitarian support, is dangerous and outrageous,” he added, warning that “catastrophic humanitarian consequences” would have consequences.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
The area has been under a land, sea and air blockade enforced by Israel since 2007, and even before the latest conflict more than half of its residents lived below the poverty line. Now there is only one corridor for Palestinians to escape or for the entry of aid that connects Gaza with Egypt – and it is not clear whether it is even functional.
Meanwhile, the World Food Program said it distributed food to 135,000 people in shelters across the Gaza Strip on Friday, but warned that “humanitarian supplies are running low.”
OCHA added that most people in the strip now do not have access to water. “As a last resort, people are consuming brackish water from agricultural wells, raising serious concerns about the spread of water-borne diseases,” it said.
In response, Israel’s UN ambassador said on Friday the government was doing “everything we can to minimize civilian casualties” by issuing the evacuation order and accused the UN of not wanting Israel to “defend itself “.