- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- “Gaza City civilians, for your own safety and the safety of your families, evacuate south and distance yourself from Hamas.”
- “Terrorists who use you as human shields,” the military said in a statement.
- The Israeli military said it attacked 750 military targets in the north
- Gaza overnight
JERUSALEM/NEW YORK/TEL AVIV, Oct 13 (Portal) – The Israeli military on Friday called on all Gaza City civilians, more than 1 million people, to relocate south within 24 hours as it fears an attack by tanks gathered near the Gaza Strip expected ground invasion.
“Now is the time for war,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday as Israeli warplanes continued to bomb Gaza in retaliation for attacks by Hamas militants over the weekend that killed more than 1,300 Israelis, mostly civilians.
The Israeli military said it would operate “significantly” in Gaza City in the coming days and that civilians would not be able to return until a further announcement.
“Gaza City civilians, for your own safety and the safety of your families, evacuate south and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields,” the military said in a statement.
“Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City in tunnels under houses and in buildings where innocent Gazan civilians live.”
A Hamas official said the warning about relocation to Gaza was “false propaganda” and urged citizens not to fall for it.
The United Nations considered it impossible for such a movement of people to take place “without devastating humanitarian consequences.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the UN’s response to Israel’s early warning to Gazans “shameful.”
Israel has vowed to destroy the Hamas militant group that led Saturday’s attacks.
The Israeli military said it struck 750 military targets in the northern Gaza Strip overnight, including what it said were Hamas tunnels, military compounds, homes of senior militants and weapons depots.
However, a ground invasion of Gaza poses a serious risk as Hamas is holding scores of hostages kidnapped in the attack.
The Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people, is under siege by Israel, which has attacked Hamas targets in the enclave since weekend raids, killing more than 1,500 Palestinians in reprisal attacks.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said emergency power generators in hospitals in Gaza could run out within hours, and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned that food and fresh water were running dangerously low.
“The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent and I implore the sides to alleviate the suffering of civilians,” said ICRC regional director Fabrizio Carboni.
The United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said it had relocated its central operations center and international staff to the south of the Gaza Strip.
“We urge the Israeli authorities to protect all civilians in UNRWA shelters, including schools,” the agency said on social media platform X.
“TRANSLATED BY BULLETS”
To drum up support for its response, the Israeli government showed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defense ministers graphic images of children and civilians it said Hamas killed in a weekend shooting spree in Israel.
Blinken said they showed a “bullet-riddled” baby, beheaded soldiers and burned young people in their cars. “It’s just depravity in the worst form imaginable,” he said. “It really goes beyond anything we can comprehend.”
Like others around the world, Blinken called on Israel to show restraint but also reiterated America’s support, saying: “We will always stand with you.”
[1/12]People walk on rubble after a strike amid the conflict with Israel in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 12, 2023. Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa ACKNOWLEDGES LICENSE RIGHTS
On Friday he was scheduled to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as part of a Middle East trip aimed at preventing the war from spilling over.
Blinken also planned to visit key U.S. allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – some of which have influence over Hamas, an Iran-backed Islamist group.
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said lessons would be learned from the security failures around Gaza that made the attack possible. “We will learn and investigate, but now is the time for war,” he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called his Emirati counterpart on Friday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.
Turkey has offered to mediate in the conflict and wants to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians affected by the fighting. Fidan will travel to Egypt on Friday for talks on regional issues.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday urged citizens in Lebanon to stay away from the south of the country as fighting breaks out between Israeli and Palestinian forces there.
The US military places no conditions on its security assistance to Israel, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, adding that Washington expects the Israeli military to do “the right things” in waging its war against Hamas.
Austin was scheduled to be in Israel on Friday and planned to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hamas called on Palestinians on Friday to protest the Israeli bombing of the enclave, urging them to march to Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem and clash with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.
SAFETY CONCERNS IMMEDIATE SAFETY ACTIONS
The US State Department will offer charter flights to Europe starting Friday to help Americans leave Israel if they wish, the White House said.
Japan has arranged a charter flight from Tel Aviv on Saturday for its citizens wishing to leave Israel, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters on Friday.
The conflict sparked some unrest in Europe, with police in Paris using tear gas and water cannons to break up a banned rally in support of the Palestinian people. Some Jewish schools in Amsterdam and London had to temporarily close for security reasons.
U.S. law enforcement officials in New York and Los Angeles said they announced an increased police presence on Friday, particularly near synagogues and Jewish community centers, but some officials sought to downplay the threat.
The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, an Arab advocacy group, said Thursday that FBI agents had visited mosques in various states and individual U.S. citizens with Palestinian roots, calling it a “disturbing trend.” In Jerusalem, numerous Israelis gathered on Thursday at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl to bury their dead.
“When you didn’t answer my call, I knew you were fighting with all your might. When I realized you were missing, I couldn’t imagine it would end like this,” said one mourner.
In Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, where cemeteries were already overflowing, dead people were buried in empty plots, such as the Samour family who died in a strike at their home on Wednesday evening.
Palestinian rescue worker Ibrahim Hamdan drove from one bomb site to another as his team tried to rescue survivors from homes destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.
“This war is unimaginably hard,” said Hamdan, who has been through several wars since becoming a rescuer in 2007. “They are tearing down high-rise buildings on top of their residents.”
Gaza’s residents, mostly descendants of refugees who fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was founded in 1948, have suffered economic collapse and repeated Israeli bombings since Hamas seized power under a blockade 16 years ago.
Palestinian anger has increased in recent months as Israel carries out its deadliest raid in the West Bank in years and its right-wing government talks about seizing even more land. A peace process aimed at creating a Palestinian state collapsed a decade ago, leaving the population without hope and strengthening extremists, according to Palestinian leaders.
Reporting by Henriette Chacar, Dedi Hayun, Maayan Lubell and Emily Rose in Jerusalem, Michelle Nichols in New York, Emma Farge in Geneva, Jeff Mason in Washington, Humeyra Pamuk in Tel Aviv, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; writing by Michael Martina and Michael Perry; Edited by Howard Goller, Diane Craft and Lincoln Feast
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