 "Israel-Gaza conflict")
Countries urged Israel on Friday to hold off on plans for an all-out assault on northern Gaza, where more than a million civilians largely defied its order to evacuate before it goes after Hamas militants who slaughtered Israelis a week ago.
Hamas, which controls the densely populated Palestinian territory, vowed to fight until the last drop of blood and told residents to stay put after Israel said they should move to the south within 24 hours.
While some heeded the call to leave, by Friday afternoon there was little sign of a mass exodus. “Death is better than leaving,” said Mohammad, 20, standing in the street outside a building reduced to rubble in an Israeli air strike two days ago near the centre of Gaza.
With power supplies cut and food and water in the Palestinian enclave running short after a week of retaliatory air strikes and a full Israeli blockade, the UN said Gaza’s civilians were in an impossible situation.
“The noose around the civilian population in Gaza is tightening. How are 1.1 million people supposed to move across a densely populated warzone in less than 24 hours?” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths wrote on social media.
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White House national security spokesman John Kirby said such a huge evacuation was a “tall order”, but that Washington would not second guess its ally's decision to tell civilians to get out of the way.
Iran-backed militants, on the other hand, could open a new front in Israel’s war against Hamas if the blockade of Gaza and “war crimes” there continue, said Hossein Amirabdollahian in Lebanon, signaling a potential expansion of the conflict. Iran describes the network of armed anti-Israel groups that it supports across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as the “axis of resistance” against Israeli occupation.
Saudi Arabia is now putting US-backed plans to normalise ties with Israel on ice, two sources familiar with Riyadh's thinking said, signalling a rapid rethinking of its foreign policy priorities as the war escalates between Israel and Hamas. The conflict has pushed the kingdom to engage with Iran -- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took his first phone call from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a bid to prevent a broader surge in violence across the region.
The northern half of the Gaza Strip includes the enclave's biggest settlement Gaza City. The UN said it had been told that Israel wanted the entire population to move across the wetlands that bisect the enclave.
"Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields," the Israeli military said, accusing Hamas of hiding in and under civilian buildings.
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority that is a rival of Hamas, told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Jordan that the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza would constitute a repeat of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from what is now Israel. Most Gazans are the descendants of such refugees.
Abbas called for aid to be allowed into Gaza immediately.
Israel has said it will not lift its blockade until scores of hostages captured by Hamas are set free.
The military wing of Hamas said the latest air strikes had killed 13 of the captives it brought back from Israel and that it had fired 150 rockets at Israel in response. The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said more than 400,000 people had already been made homeless in Gaza and 23 aid workers had been killed. “Mass displacement continues,” it said.
Amid Israel’s counterattack, main squares in capital cities of Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon saw people carrying Palestinian flags chanting in support of Gazans, according to footage carried by regional TV station Al Jazeera and Iran’s state media.
Meanwhile, G20 economies made no mention of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in a communique on Friday. The text, agreed by G20 finance leaders gathered for an IMF-World Bank meeting in Marrakech, noted deep anguish at the loss of life and destruction in natural disasters in Libya and Morocco and said they stood in solidarity with the people there. But there was no reference at all to the crisis in Gaza.
India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told a news conference that the Israel-Gaza events were left out of the G20 communique because they did not feature much in the financial officials’ discussions.
