Dhe Israeli request is unprecedented. The military called on “all Gaza City civilians” in a statement Friday morning to “leave their homes and seek safety in the area south of Wadi Gaza for their own safety and protection.” This also applies to all areas in the northern Gaza Strip. In total there are more than a million people.
According to the United Nations, citing Israeli information, the civilian population should have 24 hours to move into the southern Gaza Strip. Since last Saturday, more than 420,000 people have been on the run within Gaza. More than half of them have sought protection in 92 schools run by the UN relief agency UNRWA, which are now to be evacuated.
There is much to suggest that the third Israeli ground offensive since the withdrawal from Gaza 18 years ago will be the most massive and costly. This time, the Israeli government says it wants to completely destroy Hamas, which has ruled since 2007, and its armed Qassam brigades.
A humanitarian crisis is brewing
An Israeli military spokesman announced on Friday that the attacks would be controlled during the evacuation “so that they (the people) can move safely.” Israel was clear that an evacuation would last more than 24 hours. Meanwhile, at least 1,799 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Friday afternoon. There are at least 7,388 injured people who can hardly be cared for.
Because of the ongoing air strikes, rescue workers can no longer move freely in Gaza and the overcrowded hospitals are running out of medical supplies. “If the bombing does not stop and a humanitarian corridor is established, the Palestinian health system will not make it to the end of this week,” CNN quoted British-Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu-Sitta, who works in a hospital in northern Gaza, as saying. The International Committee of the Red Cross had previously warned that with Israel cutting off power supplies, there was a growing risk that hospitals would turn into “morgues.”
But even if the more than one million people made it to the south of Gaza, the more rural south hardly has enough capacity to accommodate them. The refugees would then crowd into an inhospitable area on the edge of the desert with no exit. The Rafah border crossing on the border with Egypt is too small; Even at normal times, according to the UN, a maximum of 1,000 people can pass through it per day.
However, Cairo strictly rejects a “humanitarian corridor” advocated by the American government. In the past, the government in Gaza had already objected to Israel absolving itself of its responsibility for the Gaza Strip through a population transfer. There was also talk that the crossing could be used for a possible prisoner exchange.
Egypt, meanwhile, stepped up security measures along the border with the Gaza Strip. Thousands of security forces are said to have been deployed there, the Associated Press news agency reported, citing an unnamed senior Egyptian official. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi called for humanitarian aid to be brought to Gaza via the border crossing with Egypt.
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