LAST UPDATE | 14 Oct 2023
THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS have fled to southern Gaza seeking refuge after Israel warned them to evacuate before an expected ground offensive against Hamas in retaliation for the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that nearly a week of fierce bombardment was “just the beginning” as Israel seeks to retaliate against Hamas after their fighters killed more than 1,300 a week ago.
A senior military commander of Hamas who headed the group’s aerial operations in Gaza City has been killed in Israeli air strikes, the military has said.
Murad Abu Murad was killed over the past day when fighter jets struck an operational centre of Hamas from where the group carried out its “aerial activity”, the military said.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas.
Israeli ground forces made “localised” raids into Gaza in the past 24 hours “to cleanse the area of terrorists and weaponry” and try to find “missing persons”, the army said.
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 2,215 people, including 724 children, the Palestinian territory’s Hamas-controlled health ministry said today.
Some 458 women were among those killed, the ministry said. It added that 8,714 people have also been wounded, after an earlier statement said at least 324 people were killed in the past 24 hours alone.
“Where to go?” asked Umm Hossam, 29, who was among the thousands fleeing.
“How long will the strikes and death last? We have no homes left, every area of Gaza is under threat,” said the 29-year-old, her face streaked with tears.
Hamas took about 150 Israeli, foreign and dual national hostages back to Gaza in the initial attack, Israel has said.
The militant group said yesterday that 13 of them had been killed in Israeli air strikes.
The Israeli military said that Gaza City residents must not delay their departure before the expected ground offensive starts.
Israel has designated two safe routes for more than one million residents of northern Gaza to leave for the south of the blockaded territory.
Military spokesman Richard Hecht said there is a safe passage “window” between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm local time on the roads, down the Gaza coast and through the centre of the narrow Palestinian territory, which is about 40 kilometres long.
Without saying how many days the window would remain, Hecht told reporters: “We know this is going to take time but we recommend people not to delay.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, speaking in Israel yesterday, accused Hamas of using residents as a “shield” in Gaza, where Israel has cut off water, fuel and food supplies.
The term “human shield” is commonly used by Israeli officials when describing the civilian population of Gaza.
US President Joe Biden spoke with the families of 14 Americans who have been missing since the Hamas attack Friday.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to find them,” he told CBS’s “60 Minutes”.
He also stressed that addressing the swelling humanitarian crisis in Gaza was a “priority”.
“The overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas and Hamas’s appalling attacks, and they’re suffering as a result as well,” Biden said in a speech.
In the occupied West Bank, at least 16 Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces during protests supporting Gaza, the health ministry said.
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
But Netanyahu’s spokeswoman Tal Heinrich told AFP: “Everything that happens in Gaza is Hamas’s responsibility.”
Thousands also demonstrated in support of the Palestinians yesterday in Beirut, Iraq, Iran and in Jordan. A similar protest is planned for this afternoon in Dublin.
Demonstrations also took place in Bahrain, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting today, as part of a regional tour seeking to keep calm in the Arab world.
Saudi Arabia has suspended talks on potentially normalising ties with Israel, a source has told AFP.
“Saudi Arabia has decided to pause discussion on possible normalisation and has informed US officials,” a source familiar with the discussions told AFP.
Saudi Arabia in the weeks before the attacks had spoken of progress in US-led diplomacy to normalise relations with Israel – which would be a landmark step for the kingdom that is home to Islam’s two holiest sites.
But Riyadh has voiced increasing disquiet about the fate of Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Yesterday, Saudi Arabia denounced the displacement of Palestinians within Gaza and attacks on “defenceless civilians”, its strongest language criticising Israel since the war broke out.
Riyadh “affirms its categorical rejection of calls for the forced displacement of the Palestinian people from Gaza, and its condemnation of the continued targeting of defenceless civilians there,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
In Gaza, UN officials said the Israeli military, whose troops are massing at the border, had said some 1.1 million people in the north of the enclave needed to evacuate to the south “within the next 24 hours”.
Yesterday, Tánaiste Micheál Martin called on Israel to rescind its evacuation order from northern Gaza and said that moving 1 million people in that time “simply isn’t feasible”.
Israel did not confirm it had set the deadline, but later admitted it would take more time.
The United Nations described the immediate movement of nearly half of the 2.4 million in the Gaza Strip as “impossible” called for the evacuation order to be rescinded.
“Moving more than one million people across a densely populated war zone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory of Gaza is under siege, is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said on X (formerly Twitter).
Hospitals are struggling to cope with the dead and wounded and the health system was “at a breaking point”, the World Health Organization said.
In Jordan, after a meeting with Blinken, King Abdullah II called for “humanitarian corridors” to be opened urgently.
Egypt and Israel have agreed to let US citizens leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing on Saturday as Israel carries out strikes against Hamas, a US official said.
The two US partners agreed to keep the sole crossing from Gaza to Egypt open from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm local time, said a US official accompanying Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a regional tour, and adding that Qatar spoke with Hamas to encourage cooperation.
AFP correspondents in Gaza said the Israeli military dropped flyers yesterday warning residents to flee “immediately” south of Wadi Gaza, with a map pointing south across a line in the centre of the 40 kilometre-long territory.
The army said it “will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians”.
“Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent civilians.”
Netanyahu has vowed to “crush” Hamas, and has likened it to the Islamic State group.
But in Geneva, the Red Cross said the unjustifiable “horrific” attacks on Israel could equally not justify “the limitless destruction of Gaza”.
Hamas has said Palestinians rejected the evacuation request, yet thousands of Gazans were on the move in search of safety, carrying plastic bags of belongings, suitcases on their shoulders and children in their arms.
Even before the evacuation order, more than 423,000 people had already fled their homes in Gaza, according to the UN.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has accused Israel of committing war crimes.
“Israeli atrocities amount to war crimes,” he said in a letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that was posted on the Palestinian group’s website.
Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit said Israel’s evacuation order is a “forced transfer” that constitutes “a crime”.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said it will be “tantamount to a second Nakba” or “catastrophe”, referring to the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Israel risked waging an “unacceptable” siege in Gaza comparable to the Nazi blockade of Leningrad during World War II.
Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov hopes to meet representatives of Hamas in Qatar next week for talks to free Israeli hostages, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency has reported.
Bogdanov told RIA Novosti he “did not exclude” meeting Hamas on the trip, adding: “If they are willing, we always are in favour of contact. Especially in this situation (the meeting) would be useful for solving practical issues, including the freeing of hostages.”
Iran has said it was still possible to prevent a regional spillover of Israel’s war with Islamist group Hamas but warned that time was quickly running out.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was speaking from the Lebanese capital Beirut.
“There is still a political opportunity to prevent a widespread crisis in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian told a press conference in Beirut after stops in Baghdad and Damascus.
But “maybe, in the next few hours, it will be too late,” he said, warning that pro-Iran militants “have designed all the scenarios and are prepared, and their finger is on the trigger to shoot.”
Although Tehran has long backed Hamas – which rules Gaza – financially and militarily, Iran has denied involvement in the group’s attack on Israel.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China, a partner of Iran, to use its influence to push for calm in the Middle East.
The top US diplomat, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, had a “productive” one-hour telephone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
“Our message was that he thinks it’s in our shared interest to stop the conflict from spreading.” Miller told reporters on Blinken’s plane from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi.
“He thought it could be useful if China could use its influence.”
Wang for his part said that the United States should “play a constructive and responsible role, pushing the issue back on track for a political settlement as soon as possible,” according to a readout published by the Chinese foreign ministry.
“When dealing with international hot-spot issues, major countries must adhere to objectivity and fairness, maintain calmness and restraint, and take the lead in abiding by international law,” said Wang.
The Chinese foreign minister added that Beijing called for “the convening of an international peace meeting as soon as possible to promote the reaching of broad consensus”.
“The fundamental outlet for the Palestinian issue lies in implementing a ‘two-state solution’,” said Wang.
China’s official statements on the conflict have not specifically named Hamas in their condemnations of violence, leading to criticism from some Western officials who said they were too weak.
Tensions have risen across the Middle East and beyond, with angry protests in support of the Palestinians, while Israel faces the threat of a separate confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A Reuters video journalist, Issam Abdallah, was killed and six other reporters – from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera – were injured in southern Lebanon close to Israel, when caught up in cross-border shelling.
— Reuters Press Team (@ReutersPR) October 13, 2023
The Israeli army said today it was “very sorry” for the death of the Reuters journalist.
“We are very sorry for the journalist’s death,” military spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters when asked about the killing of the Reuters videographer on Friday.
The Israeli military did not acknowledge responsibility, however.
“We are looking into it,” Hecht said of the incident in which six other journalists, including two from AFP, were also injured.
Following the attack, Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement that Israeli forces had “once again attempted to silence the media by targeting journalists”.
“Israel’s targeting of the Al Jazeera team is a blatant disregard of international safety standards that clearly distinguish the press, as they shelled and burned an Al Jazeera broadcast vehicle despite our crew’s presence alongside other international media in an agreed upon location,” the network said.
Israeli forces have said they killed several “terrorists” trying to cross from Lebanon amid heightened tensions and after repeated cross-border shelling.
The military “identified a terrorist cell which attempted to infiltrate from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” a military spokesman said, adding that a drone strike “targeted the terrorist cell and killed a number of the terrorists”.
Israel was behind the cross-border rocket fire that killed and injured the journalists, the Lebanese army has said.
“The Israeli enemy fired a rocket shell that hit a civilian car belonging to a media team, leading to the death of Issam Abdallah,” a Reuters journalist, and wounding several others yesterday, it said in a statement.
The Lebanese army said in a statement that “the Israeli enemy fired a rocket shell that hit a civilian car belonging to a media team, leading to the death of Issam Abdallah”.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry also blamed Israel and labelled the strike a “deliberate killing” and a “crime against freedom of speech and journalism”.
The group of journalists from different media, wearing press vests and helmets, was near the village of Alma al-Shaab, close to the border with Israel, when they came under “direct” fire, according to two eyewitnesses.
AFP photographer Christina Assi and AFP video journalist Dylan Collins were among the six journalists wounded.
Collins said there had been no outgoing fire from their location prior to the strike launched from the Israeli side of the border.
“We were filming smoke billowing from Israeli artillery fire targeting a distant hill in front of us,” Collins said.
“There was no military activity in our direct vicinity and no artillery fire near us.”
The journalists were standing in an open area when they heard small arms fire from a different direction further west, along the border with Israel, according to Collins, who spoke from the hospital.
“When we turned our cameras to look closer, we were hit directly by what seemed to be a rocket strike from the Israeli side,” Collins said.
Shortly after, he said, “we were hit again, directly, in the same place and from the same area. Two direct strikes on the same area.”
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said yesterday that it was “fully prepared” to join its Palestinian ally Hamas in the war against Israel when the time is right.
Arab countries and the United Nations have urged Hezbollah to stay out of the growing conflict, but the Lebanese-based group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said the movement would not be swayed.
Amid the mounting tensions, Israel shelled two villages in south Lebanon near the border yesterday, Lebanese security sources said, following a blast on the border fence.
On Monday, Hezbollah had said Israeli strikes had killed three of its members, while Palestinian fighters claimed a thwarted infiltration bid.
On Tuesday, Israel said it hit Hezbollah observation posts and a day later, Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli position near the Lebanese village of Dhayra. Retaliatory Israeli fire wounded three people.
With reporting from AFP
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