On the seventh day of escalation between the Palestinian Hamas movement and Israel, Israeli forces carried out the first ground attack in Gaza on Friday. This comes in light of fears of Israeli orders to Gaza residents to evacuate the northern half of the Strip within 24 hours. During the past few days, Israel responded by launching the most intense air strikes during its 75-year-long conflict with the Palestinians. The Ministry of Health in Gaza says that there are about 1,900 dead, including 614 children, and about 6,388 wounded Palestinians, while the death toll has reached 1,300 on the Israeli side, according to the Israeli Broadcasting Authority.
Published on: 10/13/2023 – 23:41
3 minutes
On Friday, the Israeli army carried out the first ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, entering… escalation Between Tel Aviv and Hamas, its seventh day. For days, Israel has intensified its air strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip after an attack launched by Hamas at dawn last Saturday. Meanwhile, the United Nations expressed its concerns about Israeli orders to Gaza residents to evacuate the northern part of the area within 24 hours.
Israel confirmed that its infantry and tank forces carried out the first incursion into the Strip, in its first announcement of a shift from air war to ground operations to eliminate Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) fighters a week after the start of the escalation.
Israeli army spokesman Admiral Daniel Hajari said forces backed by tanks launched raids to attack Palestinian rocket crews and were seeking information on the location of the hostages, the first official report on ground forces in Gaza since the crisis began.
At the same time, some Gazans left their homes to escape the path of an Israeli attack, after Israel ordered more than a million people to evacuate the northern half, but Hamas asked them not to leave.
Several thousand residents were seen on the roads heading out of the northern Gaza Strip, but it was not possible to estimate their numbers. Many others said they would not leave.
Hamas, which controls the densely populated Palestinian enclave, has vowed to fight until the last drop of blood. The Israeli army said that a large number of Gazans had begun moving south to “save themselves.”
UN warnings
The United Nations and other organizations have warned of a catastrophe if such a large number of people are forced to flee.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to occur without devastating humanitarian consequences,” prompting Israel to rebuke the international body, saying that the United Nations must condemn Hamas and support Israel’s right to self-defense.
“The noose is tightening on the civilian population in Gaza,” UN aid official Martin Griffiths wrote on social media. “How can 1.1 million people move through a densely populated war zone in less than 24 hours?”
On Friday, Israel called on all civilians in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, meaning more than a million people, to move to the south within 24 hours.
The United Nations said that evacuating everyone was impossible in light of the interruption of electricity supplies and the depletion of food and water in the Strip after a week of retaliatory air strikes and a complete Israeli blockade.
The northern half of the Gaza Strip includes the largest population center in the Strip, in Gaza City. The United Nations said it had been informed that Israel wanted all residents to move to the south of the Strip.
France 24/Reuters
#Israel #carries #ground #attack #Gaza #start #escalation #warns #evacuation #residents #Strip
2023-10-13 21:41:22
