The order given by Israel to the Palestinians to move to the south of the Gaza Strip is “a forced transfer” and constitutes “a crime that surpasses understanding,” said the president of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, this Friday.
“What Israel is doing is not a planned or studied military operation to uproot the groups responsible for the attacks against it, but rather a heinous act of revenge… to punish the powerless civilians in Gaza,” said Aboul Gheit. , in an urgent statement. letter addressed to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, who already condemned the measure.
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas rejected the 24-hour ultimatum given by the Israeli army, which would involve the displacement of around half of the 2.3 million people residing in the Gaza Strip.
“Our Palestinian people reject the threat from the occupation leaders. [israelita] and their calls for them to abandon their homes and flee to the south or to Egypt. We are firm in our land, in our homes and in our cities. There will be no trips,” Hamas said in a statement quoted by the French agency France-Presse (AFP).
In fact, Hamas is being accused by the Israeli army of setting up roadblocks to prevent the evacuation of civilians.
“Hamas is installing barricades and barriers to prevent the population of northern Gaza from moving south. We are receiving information that Hamas is trying to prevent the withdrawal by using civilians as human shields,” said Hamas spokesman for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari.
The Israeli military spokesman also stated that the Palestinian Islamist movement keeps the civilian population within its own military facilities, including tunnels, and added that Hamas also uses “civilian residential buildings for military purposes”, from which it launches ‘drones’ (non-planes). manned devices) for Israel.
Despite speaking out against the Israeli decision, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced this Friday that it has withdrawn to the south of the Gaza Strip.
The UN warned that the order to evacuate the Israeli army could lead to a “catastrophic situation” in Gaza, where the situation has deteriorated considerably since the start of the war almost a week ago.
The Egyptian Rafah crossing is the only exit route from the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel and has been bombed several times this week.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt remained committed to providing aid to Gaza but urged Palestinians to “remain on their lands” in a speech on Thursday.
The Israeli army warned this Friday that it will operate with a “significant force” in Gaza in the coming days and called on the population of the north of the territory to withdraw to the south to attack Hamas.
“As we understand that there are civilians here who are not our enemies and that we do not want to attack them, we ask them to leave,” explained an Israeli army spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, quoted by the US agency AP.
Israel has concentrated forces near the Gaza Strip in a sign of a possible ground offensive, after shelling territory controlled by the Islamist group Hamas for the past seven days.
The escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday, which killed civilians and soldiers and took more than a hundred hostages, taken to the Gaza Strip.
Since then, the conflict has caused nearly three thousand deaths on both sides.
Israeli bombings also left more than 423,000 people displaced in the Gaza Strip, territory controlled by Hamas since 2007.
Source: TSF
