Palestinians look at the destruction after Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Khan Younis, November 4, 2023.
Fatima Shbair/AP
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Fatima Shbair/AP
Palestinians look at the destruction after Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Khan Younis, November 4, 2023.
Fatima Shbair/AP
TEL AVIV, Israel – The Israeli military said Hamas attacked a safe passage from the northern Gaza Strip during a three-hour evacuation window set by Israeli forces on Saturday.
“The terrorist organization Hamas took advantage of the humanitarian window that the IDF provided to Gazans to move south, and the terrorists fired mortars and anti-tank missiles at IDF troops who arrived and operated to open the route,” it said the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Earlier on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that there would be a short three-hour window (from 1:00 p.m. local time to 4:00 p.m.) for people stuck in the northern Gaza Strip to travel safely by road to the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said it would “avoid an attack on a main road to the south,” but stressed that this was by no means a ceasefire.
Hundreds of thousands of people still stuck in northern Gaza were given three hours to flee south. But it appears that few, if any, people were able to leave.
By the end of that window, NPR had not met anyone who could use this so-called safe passage. Several drivers there said it was impossible for anyone to get through the damaged road.
One driver told NPR that he and his brother drove south and found that the roads were impassable, that “there were holes in the ground, and we saw body parts scattered all over Salah al-Din, the main street in Gaza.” stripes.
He said, “We were afraid to move forward because we heard gunshots across the valley, so we turned back.” This person asked NPR not to use their name out of concern for their safety.
The United Nations estimates that up to 300,000 internally displaced people could still be stuck in northern Gaza, including Gaza City – an area that Israeli forces have surrounded as part of their ground operation.
It has been about a week since Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip through a ground offensive and remained in the Gaza Strip. This military effort has focused primarily on the north and has effectively cut the strip in half, preventing aid from getting in or civilians from getting out.
The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack currently stands at 9,488 people in Gaza – nearly 70% of whom are women and children, according to the Health Ministry.
If civilians were able to escape to the south of the Gaza Strip during the window, they were unlikely to be able to move further once they arrived.
Officials in Gaza also closed the only available border crossing from Gaza to Egypt on Saturday. They said foreign passport holders would not be allowed to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, unless patients from hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza Strip were allowed entry to the crossing.
The border crossing has been opened in the last three days to Palestinians of foreign nationality or Palestinians with connections abroad and to foreign employers.
More Americans were added to the list of people allowed to leave Gaza today, the fourth day since the border opened.
NPR’s Anas Baba contributed reporting from Gaza. Jaclyn Diaz, Lauren Migaki and Elissa Nadworny reported from Tel Aviv.