Within 24 hours, the order to evacuate more than a million Palestinians seems unrealistic. However, Israel demanded this Friday that “all civilians” in Gaza City move to the south of the Gaza Strip “for their own safety and protection”, on the seventh day of its war against Hamas. Civilians will have to “go to the area south of Wadi Gaza”, a stream located south of Gaza City, the Israeli army added. “You will only be allowed to return to Gaza City when another announcement allowing this is made,” the statement said.
Hamas has already expressed its refusal. “Our Palestinian people reject the threat of the occupation leaders and their calls to leave their homes and flee to the south or Egypt,” the statement said.
Humanitarian disaster
In New York, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric, confirmed that the Israeli army had informed the organization of this evacuation order, which according to him concerns around 1.1 million inhabitants. from the north of the Gaza Strip. He warned that an evacuation of such a scale was “impossible without causing devastating humanitarian consequences”. In these circumstances, “the United Nations strongly calls for this order (…) to be canceled to prevent what is already a tragedy from transforming into a calamitous situation,” he insisted.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, reacted strongly. “The UN response to Israel’s prior warning to the inhabitants of Gaza is shameful,” he wrote in a message sent to AFP by his services, accusing the UN of having “ turned a blind eye to Hamas.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced Friday on its X account (formerly Twitter) the transfer of its operations center and its staff to the south of the Gaza Strip, “in order to continue its humanitarian operations and support for its staff and Palestinian refugees.”