More than 400,000 in Gaza were already internally displaced before Israel’s evacuation order, UN humanitarian office says
“This is chaos, no one understands what to do,” said Inas Hamdan, an officer at the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza City told an Associated Press reporter while she grabbed whatever she could throw into her bags as the panicked shouts of her relatives could be heard around her.
She said all the UN staff in Gaza City and northern Gaza had been told to evacuate south to Rafah.
The United Nations said late on Thursday evening in New York that it had received an evacuation order from the Israeli Defence Forces saying that everyone in northern Gaza should leave within the next 24 hours and go to the south.
The UN statement said that they had been informed that “The entire population of Gaza north of Wadi Gaza” must evacuate to southern Gaza. Wadi Gaza is the river that divides Gaza roughly into north and South.
The order applied to the Gazans sheltering in UN facilities, and to UN staff.
The spokesperson for the UN Secretary General said that the area included 1.1 million people, and that the task would be “impossible without devastating humanitarian consequences”.
A short while later, at 7,30 am in Tel Aviv, an IDF spokesperson released a daily video update in which he read out a statement from the IDF directed at residents of Gaza City calling for them to evacuate south of the Gaza river.
Reuters reports that the population of Gaza city is one million people. Al Jazeera reports that it is 700,000 people.
The update did not indicate how much time Palestinians would be given to evacuate. Conricus said only, “we understand that this will take time, it’s not an easy process”.
The IDF evacuation statement reads, in full:
The IDF calls for the evacuation of all civilians from Gaza city, from their homes, southwards, for their own safety and protection, and to move to the area south of wadi Gaza, the river Gaza, as shown on the map.
The Hamas terrorist organisation waged a war against the state of Israel, and Gaza City is an area where military operations are taking place. This evacuation is for your own safety. You will be able to return to Gaza city only when another announcement permitting it is made. Do not approach the area of the security fence of Israel. Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza city, inside tunnels, underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent civilians who are using you as human shields.
In the following days the IDF will continue to operate with significant force in Gaza city and will make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians.”
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said it relocated its central operations centre and international staff to Gaza’s south to continue its humanitarian operations and support its staff and Palestinian refugees.
“We urge the Israeli Authorities to protect all civilians in UNRWA shelters including schools,” the agency said on social media platform X.
“Our aim is to take all of Hamas’s military abilities and strip them away,” IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said.
Conricus said, “we understand that this will take time, it’s not an easy process”.
He said that the evacuation message was communicated to the UN.
He did not indicate how long the IDF would give Gazans to evacuate.
The UN has said it has been told the evacuations must take place in 24 hours, a task it called “impossible without devastating humanitarian consequences”.
The message from the IDF to Gazans continued:
“The Hamas terrorist organisation waged a war against the state of Israel, and Gaza City is an area where military operations are taking place. This evacuation is for your own safety. You will be able to return to Gaza city only when another announcement permitting it is made. Do not approach the area of the security fence of Israel. Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza city, inside tunnels, underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent civilians who are using you as human shields.
In the following dys the IDF will continue to operate with significant force in Gaza city and will make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians.”
Conricus gestured towards a map, showing that Gazans must travel south, rather than towards the fence. The fence is a far shorter distance from Gaza city than the river they have been told to cross.
The IDF spokesperson said the warning was “distributed” in Arabic with a map accompanying it.
IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has shared the evacuation order in a daily situational update.
This is the message he shared:
“The IDF calls for the evacuation of all civilians from Gaza city, from their homes, southwards, for their own safety and protection, and to move to the area south of wadi Gaza, the river Gaza, as shown on the map,” Conricus said.
EXCLUSIVE: Operational update by IDF Spokesperson @jconricus as the war against Hamas continues. https://t.co/MFAOiCSssH
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 13, 2023
The IDF has announced that it is calling for the evacuation of all civilians of Gaza City from their homes “southwards”.
The IDF said, “will operate significantly in Gaza City in the coming days” and that Gazans, “will only be able to return to Gaza City when another announcement permitting”.
“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the IDF said.
It also warned Gazans “not to approach the area of fence with Israel”.
From what we can tell, the order, which appears to apply only to Gaza city, differs from what the UN said it had been told, which was that everyone in northern Gaza must evacuate to the south. The UN said this was “impossible without devastating humanitarian consequences.”
The population of Gaza municipality, which includes part of Gaza city, is about 677,000 people, according to NBC.
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israeli-Hamas war. I’m Helen Sullivan and I will be bringing you the latest developments as they happen.
A short while ago, the spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general released a statement saying that the Israeli Defence Forces had warned UN that some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave’s south within the next 24 hours.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” he said.
Dujarric said the order by the Israeli military also applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics.
We hope to have more detail soon.
Here is where things stand elsewhere in the conflict:
The United Nations says it has been told by the Israeli military that some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave’s south within the next 24 hours, a request it considers to be impossible “without devastating humanitarian consequences.” “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” the UN spokesperson said. Dujarric said the order by the Israeli military also applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics.
The Israeli air force has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza since Saturday, it said late on Thursday. “Dozens of fighter jets and helicopters attacked a series of terrorist targets of the Hamas terrorist organisation throughout the Gaza Strip. So far, the IAF has dropped about 6,000 bombs against Hamas targets,” the IAF said on X. The attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 6,6000 have been wounded.
The UN called for $294m for ‘urgent needs’ in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The United Nations has issued an emergency appeal for $294m to address “the most urgent needs” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where more than 400,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in recent days. The funds would be used to help more than 1.2 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, adding that recent fighting in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources.
Israel’s parliament approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency unity government on Thursday, including a number of centrist opposition lawmakers, to display its determination to fight the war with Hamas in Gaza.
As Israel’s unity government was sworn in, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech in which he promised, referring to hostages taken by Hamas, “We will not slacken in the effort to bring them back home.” Referring to Hamas, he called for countries that “maintain their presence” to face sanctions. As he ended the speech, he said, “Difficult days await us”.
More than 1,300 people, including 222 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to the military. The majority of the dead were killed in a single day, when Hamas fighters broke through the border and attacked Israeli civilians. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza. Israel says it has so far identified 97 of them.
Israeli bombing has destroyed eleven mosques, damaged 90 schools, according to the UN. It has also destroyed 752 residential and non-residential buildings, comprising 2,835 housing units, the UN says, citing numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing. Another nearly 1,800 housing units have been damaged beyond repair and rendered uninhabitable, it said. The UN agency also voiced alarm at the significant destruction of civilian infrastructure damaged in the shelling.
More than 423,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations said, following heavy Israeli bombardments in retaliation for Hamas’s attacks. As of late Thursday, the number of displaced in Gaza rose by 84,444 people to reach 423,378, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement sent on Friday.
Hundreds of Australians are preparing to get on repatriation flights out of Israel, with two planes to depart Tel Aviv for London in the next 24 hours. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said 1600 people had registered in Israel or the West Bank, including 19 in Gaza, for repatriation in what was an “extraordinary logistical exercise”.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, warned that the “continuation of war crimes against Palestine and Gaza” could open a new front of war, and that Israel will be “responsible for the consequences”.