UN 'appalled' by Israel evacuation orders as deadly strikes on Gaza continue

GAZA STRIP

People rush to transport casualties after Israeli bombardment at al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on July 8, 2024

The United Nations protested on Tuesday over the latest mass evacuation orders issued by Israel in Gaza as Israeli strikes continue in Gaza City.

Israel extended its evacuation warning to cover most of Gaza's main city on Monday and intense fighting erupted.

Israel has now issued three evacuation orders for Gaza City and one for the south of the Palestinian territory since June 27 in a new stepping up of its military operations. The U.N. says tens of thousands of civilians have fled.

Gaza City residents reported "explosions and numerous gun battles" and helicopter strikes through the night in southwestern neighbourhoods.

Residents said civilians were still leaving the city and many of the displaced said they had already moved from one evacuation zone only to find their new place of refuge had become a target too.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said it was "appalled" at new orders to civilians, "many of whom have been forcibly displaced multiple times, to evacuate to areas where IDF military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured".

The office said civilians told to head west out of central Gaza City on Monday were caught up in new fighting as the Israeli army "intensified its strikes in the south and west of Gaza City, targeting the very areas where they had instructed people to move to".

Gaza City residents have now been told to move to the central district of Deir al-Balah, which the U.N. office said "is already seriously overcrowded with Palestinians displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip".

Islamist movement's political chief warned that developments on the ground could threaten talks, even as mediators Egypt and Qatar were due to host new meetings this week, according to officials.

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, described the Gaza City combat as "the most intense in months".

Witnesses said messages on loudspeakers urged civilians to leave Gaza City's Al-Daraj and Al-Tuffah neighbourhoods.

Women carried the smallest children in their arms, while those old enough lugged backpacks or walked with bags slung over their shoulders through dusty streets already devastated by fighting in the war's earliest days.

The Israeli military called on Palestinians to leave parts of Gaza City's west, expanding its evacuation zone in the territory's biggest city with the third order in less than two weeks.

"Where do we go?" Abdullah Khammash asked in the street after fleeing Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood. "They tell us to leave this area and go to another area, and then they come from that area."

The military ordered Gaza City's Al-Ahli Arab Hospital evacuated after "a large amount of firing from drones" nearby on Sunday, the Episcopal Church's Jerusalem Diocese said in a statement, adding that the facility was now "out of operation".

Only a minority of Gaza's hospitals are even partly functioning, the U.N. says, and the newly displaced face "critical levels" of needs such as safe drinking water.

Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.

Hamas seized 251 hostages. Of these 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 42 of them are dead.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 38,193 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

The toll includes at least 40 deaths over the previous 24 hours, it said.

Diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting aim for an initial six-week ceasefire that would see some hostages in Gaza freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, but talks would continue for a comprehensive deal to end the war.

Hamas has signalled it would drop its insistence on a "complete" ceasefire, a demand Israel has repeatedly rejected.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office reiterated in a statement that "any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved".

  Evacuation order 

In Gaza City's Shujaiya district, subject to evacuation orders since June 27 and where battles have raged for nearly two weeks, the military said it had "eliminated dozens" of militants including in air strikes.

Israel in early January said it had dismantled Hamas's "military framework" in northern Gaza, but militants have since regrouped — underscoring the difficulty of destroying the group, which Netanyahu says is one of the goals.

A Hamas statement on Monday accused Netanyahu of trying to thwart an agreement.

While the Islamist movement "demonstrates flexibility... Netanyahu continues to place more obstacles in front of the negotiations, escalates his aggression and crimes against our people" to derail a deal, the statement said.

The Qatar-based political chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, said he had made "urgent contact" with mediators over events in Gaza which could "reset the negotiation process to square one", a Hamas statement said.

Israeli protesters have also accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war. They have stepped up their rallies, gathering in the tens of thousands to demand a hostage release deal and new elections.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Monday that a hostage deal "has to take place" and has support from "a large majority of the people".

Israel's President Isaac Herzog made a similar comment a day earlier.

Netanyahu's hard-right political allies have threatened to leave the government if he agrees to stop the fighting before Hamas is eliminated.

Egypt's state-linked Al-Qahera News said Cairo would host Israeli and U.S. delegations in the latest effort to reach a truce.

A source with knowledge of the talks told AFP that U.S. and Israeli intelligence chiefs would travel to Doha on Wednesday for discussions on a ceasefire deal, adding that they would meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani.

Alongside the Gaza war, Israel has exchanged near daily cross-border fire with Hamas's Lebanese ally, the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Those exchanges have intensified, raising fears of a wider, all-out war.

On Monday, the Israeli military said an air strike had killed a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah also announced the fighter's death, without elaborating.

Israel's military later reported that around 24 projectiles had been fired towards Israel from Lebanon.