Israel’s evacuation ultimatum to Gaza is a ‘death sentence’

ISRAEL has called for the immediate relocation of 1.1 million people in Gaza amid its massive bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ attacks, with the United Nations warning of “devastating” consequences.

Israel’s military informed the United Nations early yesterday the Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave’s south within the next 24 hours, a UN spokesman said, in what Palestinians fear could be a precursor to a planned Israeli ground offensive.

The UN said the mass relocation of the entire population in northern Gaza to the south of the enclave was “impossible” and urgently appealed for the order to be rescinded.

The World Health Organization said local health authorities in Gaza had informed it that it was impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients from northern Gaza after Israel’s military called for civilians to relocate south within 24 hours.

“There are severely ill people whose injuries mean their only chances of survival is being on life support, such as mechanical ventilators,” said WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.

“So moving those people is a death sentence. Asking health workers to do so is beyond cruel.”

The Israeli order came six days after Palestinian militants attacked Israel on the Jewish Sabbath last Saturday, by storming across the Israeli border from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing more than 1200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and seizing about 150 hostages under the cover of a deluge of rockets.

Israel has retaliated with artillery strikes in Gaza, claiming more than 1 400 lives and displacing more 400000 people in the crowded enclave. It is preparing for a possible ground invasion of the Palestinian territory after what has been labelled Israel’s 9/11.

The Israeli army confirmed yesterday it had called on Gaza City residents to evacuate to the south.

UN officials working in Gaza said earlier they were informed by the Israeli military “that the entire population of Gaza north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within the next 24 hours”.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told AFP that amounted to around 1.1 million people, adding the order also applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities – including schools, health centres and clinics.

“The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” Dujarric said, before Israel’s confirmation.

Israel’s

ambassador

to

Gilad Erdan, reacted angrily to the UN, saying its response to the warning to Gaza residents was “shameful!”.

“For many years, the UN has turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas and its use of the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as a hiding place for its weapons and murder,” Erdan said in a note from his office to AFP.

There are 2.4 million people living in Gaza who are enduring the fifth war in 15 years in the coastal enclave.

Israeli fighter jets and drones have flown above in a relentless bombardment that has levelled entire blocks and destroyed thousands of buildings. More than 423000 people have already fled their homes in Gaza, according to the UN.

Cairo faced calls to allow safe passage for fleeing civilians, but Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday urged Gazans to “stay steadfast and remain on their land”.

Israel has cut off water, food and power supplies to Gaza in a siege it has vowed will not end until all hostages are freed.

“Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,” Israeli energy minister Israel Katz said.

Hamas has threatened to kill hostages if Israel bombs Gaza civilian targets without advance warning.

The US has vowed unwavering support for Israel in its war on Hamas.

“You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a joint press conference in Tel Aviv with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.

“But as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. We will always be there by your side.”

Blinken stressed that Hamas did not represent the Palestinian people.

“Anyone who wants peace and justice must condemn Hamas’s reign of terror,” he said.

Blinken then travelled to Jordan, to meet King Abdullah II and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, yesterday.

He will also go to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Qatar to put pressure on Hamas and secure the release of hostages.

The International Committee of the Red Cross Middle East chief

Fabrizio Carboni warned Gaza’s hospitals “risk turning into morgues”.

At the biggest, al-Shifa Hospital, there were chaotic scenes of an uninterrupted stream of ambulances, relatives asking for news and wails of anguish from relatives of the dead.

An AFP team saw dozens of bodies wrapped in white shrouds in cold storage units and covering the floor of the mortuary.

In his first public remarks since Hamas attacked Israel, Abbas called for an “immediate end to comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people”.

The UN humanitarian agency has launched an urgent appeal for nearly $300 million to address the most urgent needs in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Hamas

In launching its attack on Israel, Hamas has effectively sidelined the Palestinian Authority and stamped its authority across the whole of the occupied Palestinian territories, analysts said.

With its “Al-Aqsa Flood” campaign, Hamas has imposed itself “as the Palestinian interlocutor of reference, the one capable of dictating the political and military agenda”, Xavier Guignard, a specialist on the Palestinian territories, told AFP.

Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, has been designated a terrorist group by Western powers including the US and EU.

The unprecedented operation was unlike anything “seen in the past year and a half in the occupied West Bank”, said Guignard, of the Paris-based Noria Research centre.

Israel’s arch-foe Iran has long financially and militarily backed Hamas and praised its attack, but insists it was not involved.

Hezbollah threat

Israel’s war now flaring in the south is further complicated by a threat from the north, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group based in Lebanon.

The army has massed tanks on the border after repeated clashes with Hezbollah in recent days, including cross-border rockets and shelling.

The US has sent munitions to Israel and deployed an aircraft carrier battle group to the eastern Mediterranean in a show of support, while warning Israel’s other enemies not to enter the conflict.

The UK said it was sending two Royal Navy ships and surveillance aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean to support Israel, as well as “ensure regional stability and prevent further escalation”.

Iran’s ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi called on Islamic and Arab countries to confront Israel and support the “oppressed

Palestinian nation”, in a phone call with his Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad.

Israel also struck Syria’s two main airports, in Damascus and Aleppo, in “simultaneous” attacks on landing strips that put them out of service”, state media said, citing an unidentified military source.

Phosphorus munitions

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the use of such weapons puts civilians at risk of serious and longterm injury.

Asked for comment on the allegations, Israel’s military said it was “currently not aware of the use of weapons containing white phosphorous in Gaza”. It did not provide comment on the rights watchdog’s allegations of their use in Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch said it had verified videos taken in Lebanon on October 10 and Gaza on October 11 showing “multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border”.

It provided links to two videos posted on social media that it said show “155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles being used, apparently as smokescreens, marking, or signalling”.

Both show scenes near the border, it said.

The group did not provide links to videos showing their alleged use in Gaza.

Palestinian TV channels have broadcast video in recent days showing thin plumes of white smoke lining the sky over Gaza that they say was caused by such munitions.

Reuters could not independently verify the rights group’s accounts.

Israel’s military in 2013 said it was phasing out white phosphorus smokescreen munitions used during its 2008/9 offensive in Gaza, which drew war crimes allegations from various rights groups.

The military at the time did not say whether it would also review the use of weaponised white phosphorus, which is designed to incinerate enemy positions.

White phosphorus munitions can legally be used on battlefields to make smoke screens, generate illumination, mark targets or burn bunkers and buildings. It is considered an incendiary weapon under Protocol III of the Convention on the Prohibition of Use of Certain Conventional Weapons.

The protocol prohibits using incendiary weapons against military targets located among civilians, although Israel has not signed it and is not bound by it. |

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