MORE THAN ONE million people have fled their homes in Gaza in scenes of chaos and despair as Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled territory and continued massing troops in preparation for a full-blown ground invasion.
Israel declared war on the Islamist group a day after waves of its fighters broke through the heavily fortified border on 7 October, shooting, stabbing and burning to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
After it suffered the deadliest attack in its history, Israel unleashed a relentless bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip that has flattened neighbourhoods and killed at least 2,670 people, mainly civilians.
Following an Israeli order to move to the south of the Gaza Strip, people have fled their homes in the north of the enclave to seek shelter wherever they can, including on the streets and in UN-run schools.
Palestinians carrying whatever belongings they can, in bags and suitcases, or packed onto three-wheeled motorbikes, battered cars, vans and even donkey carts have become a common sight.
“No electricity, no water, no internet. I feel like I’m losing my humanity,” said Mona Abdel Hamid, 55, who fled Gaza City to Rafah in the south of the enclave, and is having to stay with strangers.
A bereaved and infuriated Israel has massed forces outside the long-blockaded enclave of 2.4 million in preparation for what the army has said would be a land, air and sea attack involving a “significant ground operation”.
“We are at the beginning of intense or enhanced military operations in Gaza City,” spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Jonathan Conricus said.
“It would be unsafe for civilians to stay there,” he added.
Hamas backer Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is also supported by Tehran, have warned that an invasion of Gaza would be met with a response.
“No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts” if Israel sends its soldiers into Gaza, said Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Fire along the Israeli-Lebanese border has intensified in the last week, prompting Israel to shutter the area to civilians.
Yesterday, a rocket hit the UN peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah attacks killed one person in Israel, the Israeli military said.
The Journal understands that eight personnel from the Irish Defence Forces who were at the camp are safe and accounted for.
That rocket that hit the UN base is thought to have been a misfired Hezbollah rocket fired from close to the city of Tyre.
More than 10 people have been killed in Lebanon and at least two in Israel in the past week.
Among those killed in Lebanon was a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah.
Alarm
The UN said today that 47 entire families, amounting to around 500 people, have been wiped out in Israel’s bombing campaign.
Foreign governments and aid agencies, including the UN and Red Cross, have repeatedly criticised Israel’s evacuation order.
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said yesterday that some one million Palestinians had already been displaced in the first week of the conflict – but the number is likely to be higher.
Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, decried that Israel was connecting humanitarian aid into Gaza with the release of scores of hostages kidnapped during the Hamas attack.
“Neither should be conditional,” she insisted in a video posted by the UN.
“They have said they want to destroy Hamas, but their current trajectory is going to destroy Gaza.”
In Gaza, hospitals are becoming overwhelmed with increasing numbers of dead and injured, with officials saying yesterday that some 9,600 people have been wounded.
Israeli energy minister Israel Katz yesterday said water supplies to southern Gaza had been switched back on.
But power outages threaten to cripple life-support systems, from sea water desalination plants to food refrigeration and hospital incubators.
Even everyday functions — from going to the toilet, showering and washing clothes — are almost impossible, locals said.
Gazans are effectively trapped, with Israeli-controlled crossings closed and Egypt also having shut the Rafah border in the south.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to hold talks in Israel today after a crisis tour of Middle Eastern countries in a frantic attempt to avert a wider crisis.
Blinken said he was confident the crossing “will be open” for aid into the strip, amid reports that Egypt was blocking the passage of Gazans with foreign passports until relief supplies are allowed in.
He categorically rejected the idea floated of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
© AFP 2023 with reporting by The Journal Team
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