As an unrelenting Israeli bombardment intensified in the Gaza Strip, with bread and water supply running short amid power outages, a UN human rights expert warned on Saturday that Palestinians are in “grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing”.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas for the offensive a week ago, in which its fighters killed 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians, and seized scores of hostages.
It has imposed a “total blockade”, halting food supplies and cutting electricity to Gaza, and bombarded it with unprecedented air strikes. A week after that began, shops are running out of many items.
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since last week have killed at least 2,215 people, including 724 children, the Palestinian territory’s Hamas-controlled health ministry said on Saturday.
Some 458 women were among those killed, the ministry said. It added that 8,714 people have also been wounded, after an earlier statement said at least 324 people were killed in the past 24 hours alone.
Latest developments:
- Palestinian death toll in retaliatory strikes crosses 2,200
- Israel military says Gaza residents must not “delay” evacuation
- WHO flies Gaza health supplies to Egypt border
- EU official, UN call evacuation plan “impossible”; Red Cross “appalled” by human misery
- China calls on US to play “responsible role”; Iran urges caution
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel has reached fever pitch,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, according to a press release by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“The United Nations and its member states must intensify efforts to mediate an immediate ceasefire between the parties, before we reach a point of no return,” said Albanese.
“The international community has the responsibility to prevent and protect populations from atrocity crimes. Accountability for international crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces and Hamas must also be immediately pursued,” she said.
The OHCHR statement added: “[…] over 423,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Israeli strikes. This fate befell a population which has already experienced five major wars since 2008 in the context of an unlawful blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, which Albanese said has been widely condemned by the international community as collective punishment”.
“Palestinians have no safe zone anywhere in Gaza, with Israel having imposed a “complete siege” on the tiny enclave, with water, food, fuel and electricity unlawfully cut off. Rafah, the only border crossing that remained partially open to the Gaza strip, was closed after damage caused by Israeli airstrikes,” OHCHR stated.
“There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,” Albanese said.
“She noted that Israeli public officials have openly advocated for another Nakba — the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands during the hostilities” that led to Israel’s birth, the UN office said.
“The Nakba, which led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, displaced 350,000 Palestinians.”
“Israel has already carried out mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war,” Albanese said. “Again, in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.
“Any continued military operations by Israel have gone well beyond the limits of international law. The international community must stop these egregious violations of international law now, before tragic history is repeated.
“Time is of the essence. Palestinians and Israelis both deserve to live in peace, equality of rights, dignity and freedom,” Albanese said.
Gaza bakeries run out of bread, water runs low
Bakeries in Gaza were running out of bread, drinking water was in short supply and power outages left families without charged phones to find out if fleeing relatives were safe.
Thousands of Palestinians fled the north of the Gaza Strip from the path of an expected Israeli ground assault, while Israel pounded the area with more air strikes and said it would keep two roads open to let people escape.
“There is an electricity crisis, food crisis, water crisis, a crisis of everything,” Eyad Abu Mutlaq, 45, said in Khan Younis in south Gaza, a region filling up with thousands of people fleeing the north for fear of an Israeli invasion.
“It is only God who can resolve it,” he said after touring four bakeries to find long queues or no supplies.
The flood of people arriving in south Gaza after Israel told them on Friday to leave an area in the north has stretched resources that were already strained to breaking point.
“I was looking for basic food, eggs, rice, canned food, even milk for the children and I couldn’t find them,” said Khan Younis resident, giving only her nickname of Um Salem. “This is how Israel is fighting us, through starvation of our children. They either kill children by bombs or soon by starvation.”
Those who have fled say many roads and streets are often difficult to use, and some impassable, because of damage.
“Where to go?” asked Umm Hossam, 29, who was among the thousands fleeing.
“How long will the strikes and death last? We have no homes left, every area of Gaza is under threat,” said the 29-year-old, her face streaked with tears.
In Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood, in the area Israel ordered evacuated, warplanes bombed a residential area during the night hitting several houses, according to residents who took refuge at the nearby Al Quds hospital and planned to flee south in the morning.
“We lived a night of horror. Israel punished us for not wanting to leave our home. Is there brutality worse than this?”, a father of three said by telephone from the hospital, declining to give his name for fear of reprisals.
“I was never going to leave, I prefer to die and not leave, but I can’t see my wife and children die before my eyes. We are helpless.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received an Israeli order to evacuate the hospital by 4pm, but would not do so because it had a humanitarian duty to keep providing services to the sick and wounded.
In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israeli planes struck a four-storey building overnight, neighbours rushed to rescue people.
“Martyrs are stuck under the rubble and until now neither us nor the medics nor civil defence were able to take them out,” said neighbour Mohammad Sadeq.
In a video seen by Reuters, a Gaza journalist accompanied an ambulance crew searching for survivors of a nighttime air strike.
A paramedic could be seen walking into an alley lit by a headlamp when a huge flash from another strike burst in front of him. Medics raced into ambulances and sped off as planes roared above. One injured medic screamed: “My eyes! My eyes!”
Israeli military asks Gazans not to ‘delay’ evacuation
The Israeli military said on Saturday that Gaza City residents must not “delay” their departure before an expected ground offensive starts, as people leaving the north of the territory again jammed roads south.
Israel has designated two “safe routes” for more than one million residents of northern Gaza to leave for the south of the blockaded territory.
Military spokesman Richard Hecht said there is a safe passage “window” between 10am and 4pm (1pm GMT) on the roads, down the Gaza coast and through the centre of the narrow Palestinian territory, which is about 40 kilometres long.
Thousands of Gazans packed buses, cars and donkey carts again on Saturday to escape the northern zone, where the bulk of Israeli air and artillery strikes have occurred.
Without saying how many days the window would remain, Hecht told reporters: “We know this is going to take time but we recommend people not to delay.”
Israel has faced calls from the United Nations, United States and European Union to delay an expected full offensive to give civilians time to leave.
US President Joe Biden said consultations were underway with regional governments on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as trapped Palestinians endured a power blackout and shortages of food and water amid fierce Israeli bombing.
“We have seen a significant movement of Palestinian civilians towards the south,” Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told a video briefing early on Saturday. He did not mention the deadline and did not take questions.
“Around the Gaza Strip, Israeli reserve soldiers in formation (are) getting ready for the next stage of operations. They are all around the Gaza Strip, in the south, in the centre and in the north, and they are preparing themselves for whatever target they get, whatever task.”
“The end state of this war is that we will dismantle Hamas and its military capability and fundamentally change the situation so that Hamas never again has the ability to inflict any damage on Israeli civilians or soldiers.”
Hamas vowed to fight to the last drop of blood and told residents to stay.
An Israeli military spokesperson said on Friday that tank-backed troops had mounted raids to hit Palestinian rocket crews and gather information on the location of hostages, the first official account of ground troops in Gaza since the crisis began.
Hamas took about 150 Israeli, foreign, and dual national hostages back to Gaza in the initial attack, Israel has said.
The group said on Friday that 13 of them had been killed in Israeli air strikes.
Appeal to end seige
Gaza authorities said 70 people were killed and 200 were wounded when Israel struck cars and trucks carrying people fleeing the north. Reuters could not independently verify this.
Without the option of crossing the border into Egypt, more of Gaza’s population has been cramming into the south seeking shelter, as Israel builds up troops and tanks on border. Israel has already launched raids.
“We need to truck fuel into Gaza now. Fuel is the only way for people to have safe drinking water. If not, people will start dying of severe dehydration, among them young children, the elderly and women,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN refugee agency UNRWA.
“Water is now the last remaining lifeline. I appeal for the siege on humanitarian assistance to be lifted now,” he said.
The Gaza authorities have reported 10,000 people injured so far in the bombardment. Hospitals are struggling to cope. Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said hospitals were running low of medical supplies and fuel to keep going.
More than 1,695 buildings and high-rise towers have been destroyed in the Israeli airstrikes, in addition to 7,000 housing units, the Hamas government media office said.
With power cuts and no fuel to operate generators, Adel Shaheen has been charging people’s phones with his solar panels during daylight hours.
“We don’t see the electricity anymore and if we want to charge a mobile we have to wait for the sun, otherwise we have no electricity at all,” he said.
“People want to charge (mobile phones) so they can make calls to check on their families.” But he said most Gazans were now “cut off from the world”.
‘Genocide’
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in Israel on Friday, accused Hamas of using residents as a “shield” in Gaza, where Israel has cut off water, fuel, and food supplies.
US President Joe Biden spoke with the families of 14 Americans who have been missing since the Hamas attack.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to find them,” he told CBS’s “60 Minutes”.
He also stressed that addressing the swelling humanitarian crisis in Gaza was a “priority”.
“The overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas and Hamas’s appalling attacks, and they’re suffering as a result as well,” Biden said in a speech.
Tensions have risen across the Middle East and beyond, with angry protests in support of the Palestinians, while Israel faces the threat of a separate confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A Reuters video journalist was killed and six other reporters — from AFP, Reuters, and Al Jazeera — were injured in southern Lebanon close to Israel, caught up in cross-border shelling.
In the occupied West Bank, at least 16 Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces during protests supporting Gaza, the health ministry said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza.
But Netanyahu’s spokeswoman Tal Heinrich told AFP: “Everything that happens in Gaza is Hamas’s responsibility.” Thousands also demonstrated in support of the Palestinians on Friday in Beirut, Iraq, Iran, and Jordan.
Demonstrations also took place in Bahrain, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting on Saturday, as part of a regional tour seeking to keep calm in the Arab world.
EU, UN call evacuation plan ‘impossible’
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday that Israel’s plan to evacuate more than 1m people out of northern Gaza in a single day was “utterly impossible to implement”.
“I am saying that, representing the official position of the European Union… [the evacuation plan] is utterly, utterly impossible to implement,” Borrell told a press conference in Beijing on the final day of a three-day diplomatic visit to China.
“To imagine that you could move 1m people in 24 hours in a situation like Gaza can only be a humanitarian crisis,” he added.
In Gaza, UN officials said the Israeli military, whose troops are massing at the border, had said some 1.1m people in the north of the enclave needed to evacuate to the south “within the next 24 hours”.
Israel did not confirm it had set the deadline but later admitted it would take more time. A ground offensive would be complicated by the presence of hostages.
The United Nations described the immediate movement of nearly half of the 2.4m in the Gaza Strip as “impossible” and called for the evacuation order to be rescinded.
“Moving more than one million people across a densely populated war zone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory of Gaza is under siege, is extremely dangerous — and in some cases, simply not possible,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.
Hospitals are struggling to cope with the dead and wounded and the health system is “at a breaking point”, the WHO said.
In Jordan, after a meeting with Blinken, King Abdullah II called for “humanitarian corridors” to be opened urgently.
Egypt — which runs the Rafah crossing to the south of Gaza — faces the dilemma of accepting refugees with the possibility that Israel may never let them return, weakening Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
Red Cross ‘appalled’ by human misery of Israel-Hamas fight
The Red Cross said on Saturday it was “appalled” by the human misery unleashed by the fight between Hamas and Israel, saying its volunteers would not abandon those who needed them most.
It called on both sides to abide by international humanitarian law, protect civilians and allow humanitarian organisations to alleviate the growing levels of suffering.
“The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is appalled to see the human misery that has unfolded over the last week in Israel and Gaza,” with civilians paying the highest price, a statement said.
“Nothing can justify the horrific loss of civilian lives in Israel last weekend… but such tragedy cannot in turn justify the limitless destruction of Gaza,” the Red Cross statement said.
“We are deeply alarmed by the call for relocation in Gaza. Our volunteers refuse to leave and abandon those who need them most. They must be protected — so that they can protect others.”
The joint statement was issued by the heads of both branches of the Red Cross Movement: Jagan Chapagain of the IFRC and Robert Mardini of the ICRC.
The Red Cross chiefs said there was “devastating” human suffering on all sides, and in international humanitarian law, “there is no hierarchy in pain and suffering”.
“These rules exist to help preserve humanity in the darkest moments, and they desperately need to be followed today. They are and should remain our compass to ensure that we put humanity first,” the statement said.
“The Movement is committed to continuing to provide protection and life-saving relief to the people suffering the horrors of the ongoing violence.
“The needs are staggering and will only continue to increase if the hostilities persist. We call on all parties to exercise restraint, to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law, and to protect civilians.”
WHO flies Gaza health supplies to Egypt border
The World Health Organisation said on Saturday enough basic health supplies to serve 300,000 people in the Gaza Strip have been flown to an Egyptian airport near the Palestinian enclave.
The supplies were ready to go in once humanitarian access could be established through the Rafah crossing from Egypt into the southern Gaza Strip, WHO said.
A plane carrying 78 cubic metres of health supplies from the UN health agency’s logistics hub in Dubai has landed in El Arish airport “to serve the needs of 300,000 people”, including pregnant women.
“Every hour these supplies remain on the Egyptian side of the border, more girls and boys, women, and men, especially those vulnerable or disabled, will die while supplies that can save them are less than 20 kilometres away,” a statement said.
The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza is the only passage in and out of the coastal enclave not controlled by Israel.
It has been closed since Tuesday after three Israeli strikes in less than 24 hours, which damaged the terminal on the Palestinian side.
The WHO supplies include enough medicines to treat 1,200 wounded patients and 1,500 patients suffering from heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes, and respiratory problems.
There are also enough trauma pouches to treat 235 wounded people, which enable injured people to be stabilised and receive immediate, life-saving care anywhere it is needed.
The WHO called for an immediate opening of a humanitarian crossing through Rafah to deliver food, fuel, water and other essential survival items. “The critically injured, the sick, and the vulnerable cannot wait,” it said.
The first shipment of humanitarian aid arrived in El Arish on Thursday from Jordan, Egyptian state-affiliated media reported. The United Arab Emirates’ state news agency WAM said the UAE had sent a plane filled with medical aid to El Arish on Friday.
Meanwhile, three Turkish planes filled with humanitarian aid landed on Saturday at El Arish.
China calls on US to play ‘responsible role’; Iran urges caution
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said on Saturday that Washington should “play a constructive and responsible role” in the Israel-Gaza conflict, during a phone call with his US counterpart Antony Blinken.
“The United States should practically play a constructive and responsible role, pushing the issue back on track for a political settlement as soon as possible,” Wang told Blinken, according to a readout published by the Chinese foreign ministry.
“When dealing with international hot-spot issues, major countries must adhere to objectivity and fairness, maintain calmness and restraint, and take the lead in abiding by international law,” said Wang.
The Chinese foreign minister added that Beijing called for “the convening of an international peace meeting as soon as possible to promote the reaching of broad consensus”.
“The fundamental outlet for the Palestinian issue lies in implementing a ‘two-state solution’,” said Wang.
China’s official statements on the conflict have not specifically named Hamas in their condemnations of violence, leading to criticism from some Western officials who said they were too weak.
Meanwhile, Iran on Saturday said it was still possible to prevent a regional spillover of Israel’s war with Hamas but warned that time was quickly running out.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian spoke from the Lebanese capital Beirut after stops in Baghdad and Damascus: “There is still a political opportunity to prevent a widespread crisis in the region.”
But “maybe, in the next few hours, it will be too late,” he said, warning that pro-Iran fighters “have designed all the scenarios and are prepared, and their finger is on the trigger to shoot.”
Although Tehran has allegedly long backed Hamas — which rules Gaza — financially and militarily, Iran has denied involvement in the group’s offensive on Israel.
During stops in Damascus and Baghdad in the last days, Amir-Abdollahian did not rule out the possibility of an escalation that could draw its regional allies into the Israeli-Hamas war.
Israel has traded fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions in Lebanon on a near-daily basis since Sunday, although the tit-for-tat attacks have remained limited.
On Monday, Hezbollah said three of its members were killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon after Palestinian fighters tried to slip across the border.
Israel, Egypt agree to let US citizens leave Gaza Saturday: US
Egypt and Israel have agreed to let US citizens leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing on Saturday as Israel carries out strikes against Hamas, a US official said.
The two US partners agreed to keep the sole crossing from Gaza to Egypt open from 12pm to 5pm (9am-2pm GMT), said a US official accompanying Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a regional tour.
The official said that the United States did not yet have confirmation that the agreement was being implemented, “but the intention was to have it open”.
Qatar, where Blinken visited on Friday, has also been involved in the agreement by leaning on Hamas to allow movement, the official said.
The official said that 500-600 US citizens in the Gaza Strip had reached out for information on leaving the hemmed-in territory. The official did not know if other foreign nationals were able to leave.
US officials earlier had voiced interest in letting people flee to Egypt but backtracked after seeing limited support in the region, saying instead that the priority would be on helping US citizens depart.
Airstrikes
AFP correspondents in Gaza said the Israeli military on Friday dropped flyers warning residents to flee “immediately” south of Wadi Gaza, with a map pointing south across a line in the centre of the 40km-long territory.
The army said it “will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians”.
“Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent civilians,” it claimed.
Netanyahu has vowed to “crush” Hamas and has likened it to the Islamic State group.
But in Geneva, the Red Cross said the unjustifiable “horrific” attacks on Israel could equally not justify “the limitless destruction of Gaza”.
Evacuation order is a ‘crime’: Arab League chief
Hamas has said Palestinians rejected the evacuation request, yet thousands of Gazans were on the move in search of safety, carrying plastic bags of belongings, suitcases on their shoulders, and children in their arms.
Even before the evacuation order, more than 423,000 people had already fled their homes in Gaza, according to the UN.
Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit said Israel’s evacuation order is a “forced transfer” that constitutes “a crime”.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said it would be “tantamount to a second Nakba” or “catastrophe”, referring to the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Israel risked waging an “unacceptable” siege in Gaza comparable to the Nazi blockade of Leningrad during World War II.
Mass killings
Israeli soldiers have swept the southern towns and kibbutz farming communities since last Saturday.
They said they found the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters, as well as large numbers of civilians “killed by Hamas fighters”.
Yossi Landau, with the Zaka organisation that recovers the bodies of people who suffer unnatural deaths, said he found a dead woman with her stomach “ripped open, a baby was there, still connected with the cord, and stabbed”.
They were among more than 100 people killed in Beeri, just outside Gaza, while around 270 were gunned down or burned in their cars at the nearby Supernova music festival.
Hamas has denied that its fighters killed infants.
Hezbollah threat
Israel faces a potential second front in the north after the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon said it was “fully prepared” to join Hamas in the war when the time was right.
There has been a cross-border fire in recent days, sparking concern about regional stability and prompting the United States to send additional munitions and its largest aircraft carrier.
Israeli forces said on Saturday they had “struck a Hezbollah terror target in southern Lebanon” in response to a drone crossing the border.
Biden has warned other regional powers not to get involved.
Russian senior diplomat may discuss hostages with Hamas
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov may meet Hamas officials in Qatar next week and discuss a possible release of hostages seized by Hamas in its attack on Israel a week ago, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Saturday.
Bogdanov told RIA he was heading to Qatar and usually met with Hamas every time he was there.
“If they wish, we always maintain contact. Moreover, in this situation, this (meeting) is useful for resolving practical issues, including the release of hostages,” Bogdanov said.
Russia has drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire.
President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that an expected Israeli ground assault on Gaza would lead to an “absolutely unacceptable” level of civilian casualties.
