Thousands of Palestinians have fled the north of the Gaza Strip from the path of an expected Israeli ground assault, while Israel pounds the area with more air strikes and says it kept two roads open to let people escape.
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza in retaliation for a rampage by fighters, who stormed through Israeli towns a week ago, gunning down civilians and making off with scores of hostages. Some 1300 people were killed in the worst attack on civilians in Israel’s history.
Israeli forces have since put the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under a total siege and bombarded it with unprecedented air strikes. Gaza authorities say more than 2200 people have been killed, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded.
Israel had given the population of the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which includes the enclave’s biggest settlement Gaza City, until Saturday morning to move south. It later said it would guarantee the safety of Palestinians fleeing on two main roads until 4pm local time.
As the deadline passed, troops were massing around the Gaza Strip. Outside Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli infantrymen and told them to be ready for “the next stage,” without elaborating.
The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has told Palestinians not to leave and that the roads out are unsafe.
“Our decision is to remain in our land,” he added in a televised speech.
Hamas says dozens of people had been killed in strikes on cars and trucks carrying refugees on Friday, which Reuters could not independently verify. Israel says Hamas is preventing people from leaving to use them as human shields, which Hamas denies.
One million people, almost half Gaza’s population, have fled their homes in the past week including hundreds of thousands headed south from northern Gaza after the Israeli order, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said.
The attacks on Israel have plunged the nation into deep grief and galvanised it for war, with hundreds of thousands of reservists mobilised within days.
Hamas’s armed wing said nine captives including four foreigners had been killed overnight due to Israeli air strikes. It has previously threatened to kill one hostage for every building Israel strikes without warning.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza failed to halt Hamas missile strikes deep into Israeli cities. Air raid sirens wailed in central Israel on Saturday and rockets smashed into a greenhouse in Ashkelon and wounded four people at a kibbutz.
The only route out of Gaza not under Israeli control is a checkpoint with Egypt at Rafah. Egypt officially says its side is open, but traffic has been halted for days because of Israeli strikes.
Both Egypt and Cairo have rejected the exile of Palestinians from Gaza, but Egypt said it had no intention of accepting a mass influx of refugees.
Countries and aid agencies have sent supplies to Egypt but have so far been unable to bring them into Gaza. Israel says nothing can enter through Rafah without its coordination.
Israel says the evacuation order is a humanitarian gesture to protect residents from harm while it roots out Hamas fighters. The United Nations says so many people cannot be safely moved inside the besieged enclave without causing a humanitarian disaster.
Hamas has vowed to fight until the last drop of blood, and says the order to leave the north of the enclave is a trick to force residents to give up their homes.
The violence in Gaza has been accompanied by the deadliest clashes at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since 2006, raising fears of war spreading to another front.
Washington is determined to ensure Iran and Iran-backed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah do not enter the conflict.
