middle-east
Relocation of Gaza residents extremely dangerous: UN chief
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the relocation of Gaza residents from the north to the south as ordered by the Israeli military is extremely dangerous.
After days of airstrikes, the Israeli military has ordered the Palestinians in Gaza City and its surroundings to move to the south of the territory, said Guterres. "Moving more than 1 million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous - and in some cases, simply not possible."
Hospitals in the south of Gaza are already at capacity and will not be able to accept thousands of new patients from the north. The health system is on the brink of collapse. Morgues are overflowing; 11 healthcare staff have been killed while on duty; and there have been 34 attacks on health facilities in the past few days, he said before walking into a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In Israel's call for mass evacuation, Palestinians hear echoes of their original catastrophic exodus
The entire territory of Gaza faces a water crisis as infrastructure has been damaged and there is no electricity to power pumps and desalination plants, he added.
Guterres said the situation in Gaza has reached a dangerous new low.
The horrific terror attacks by Hamas on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people and injured thousands more on Saturday were followed by intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza that has already killed 1,800 people and injured thousands more, he noted.
Palestinians flee northern Gaza after Israel orders 1 million to evacuate as ground attack looms
Guterres called for immediate humanitarian access throughout Gaza so that fuel, food and water can be provided to people in need. He called for respect for international humanitarian law and human rights law, and for the protection of civilians. He also called for the immediate release of hostages in Gaza.
"It is imperative that all parties - and those with influence over them - do everything possible to achieve these steps," said Guterres.
The UN chief also warned against hate speech stoked by the conflict - across the Middle East and around the world.
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"Dehumanizing language that incites violence is never accepted. I call on all leaders to speak out against Antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry and hate speech of all kinds. This is a time for the international community to come together around protecting civilians and finding a lasting solution to this unending cycle of death and destruction," he said.
In Israel's call for mass evacuation, Palestinians hear echoes of their original catastrophic exodus
In Israel's call for the evacuation of half of Gaza's population, many Palestinians fear a repeat of the most traumatic event in their tortured history, their mass exodus from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
Palestinians refer to it as the Nakba, or "catastrophe." An estimated 700,000 Palestinians, a majority of the prewar population, fled or were expelled from what is now Israel in the months before and during the war, in which Jewish fighters fended off an attack by several Arab states.
The Palestinians packed their belongings, piling into cars, trucks and donkey carts. Many locked their doors and took their keys with them, expecting to return when the war ended.
Seventy-five years later, they have not been allowed back. Emptied towns were renamed, villages were demolished, homes reclaimed by forests in Israeli nature reserves.
Palestinians flee northern Gaza after Israel orders 1 million to evacuate as ground attack looms
Israel refused to allow the Palestinians to return, because it would threaten the Jewish majority within the country's borders. So the refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million, settled in camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Those camps eventually grew into built-up neighborhoods.
In Gaza, the vast majority of the population are Palestinian refugees, many of whose relatives fled from the same areas that Hamas attacked last weekend.
The Palestinians insist they have the right to return, something Israel still adamantly rejects. Their fate was among the thorniest issues in the peace process, which ground to a halt more than a decade ago.
Now, Palestinians fear the most painful moment from their history is repeating itself.
"You look at those pictures of people without cars, on donkeys, hungry and barefoot, getting out any way they can to go to the south," said political analyst Talal Awkal, who has decided to stay in Gaza City because he doesn't think the south will be any safer.
"It is a catastrophe for Palestinians, it is a Nakba," he said. "They are displacing an entire population from its homeland."
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas after its bloody Oct. 7 incursion. Militants killed over 1,300 Israelis, many in brutal fashion, and captured around 150 — including soldiers and civilians, young and old. Israel has launched blistering waves of airstrikes on Gaza in response that have already killed over 1,500 Palestinians, and the war appears set to escalate further.
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On Friday, Israel called on all Palestinians living in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to head south. The evacuation orders apply to more than a million people, about half the population of the narrow, 40-kilometer (25-mile) coastal strip.
With Israel having sealed Gaza's borders, the only direction to flee is south, toward Egypt. But Israel is still carrying out airstrikes across the Gaza, and Egypt has rushed to secure its border against any mass influx of Palestinians. It too, fears another Nakba.
Israeli officials say the evacuation is aimed at sparing civilians and denying Hamas the ability to use them as human shields.
"The camouflage of the terrorists is the civil population," Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday. "We need to separate them. So those who want to save their life, please go south."
The military has said those who leave can return when hostilities end, but many Palestinians are deeply suspicious.
Israel's far-right government has empowered extremists who support the idea of deporting Palestinians, and in the wake of the Hamas attack some have openly called for mass expulsion. Some are West Bank settlers still angry over Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza in 2005.
"Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!" Ariel Kallner, a member of parliament from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, wrote on social media after the Hamas attack.
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Hamas, meanwhile, has told people to remain in their homes, dismissing the Israeli orders as a ploy.
President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the internationally-recognized Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, also rejected the evacuation orders, saying they would lead to a "new Nakba."
Abbas, 87, is a refugee from Safed, in what is now northern Israel. He wore a key-shaped lapel pin when he addressed the United Nations last month, noting the 75th anniversary of the Nakba.
Palestinians have heard their relatives' stories, and have been raised on the idea that the only hope for their decades-long struggle for self-determination is steadfastness on the land.
But many in Gaza may be too frightened, exhausted and desperate to make a stand.
For nearly a week, they have been seeking safety under a barrage of Israeli airstrikes that have demolished entire city blocks, sometimes hitting without warning. There's a territory-wide electricity blackout and dwindling supplies of food, fuel and medicine.
The south isn't safe, but if Israel launches a ground offensive in the north, as seems increasingly likely, it might be their best hope for survival, even if they never return.
"The experience that happened with our families in 1948 taught us that if you leave, you will not return," said Khader Dibs, who lives in the crowded Shuafat refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem. "The Palestinian people are dying and the Gaza Strip is being wiped out."
Hamas practiced in plain sight, posting video of mock attack weeks before border breach
Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel's high-tech "Iron Wall" and launched an attack that would leave more than 1,200 Israelis dead, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal.
A slickly produced two-minute propaganda video posted to social media by Hamas on Sept. 12 shows fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.
The Islamic militant group's live-fire exercise dubbed operation "Strong Pillar" also had militants in body armor and combat fatigues carrying out operations that included the destruction of mock-ups of the wall's concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real in the deadly attack last Saturday.
While Israel's highly regarded security and intelligence services were clearly caught flatfooted by Hamas' ability to breach its Gaza defenses, the group appears to have hidden its extensive preparations for the deadly assault in plain sight.
Also read: As desperation in Gaza grows, Israel pledges to block vital aid until Hamas releases hostages
"There clearly were warnings and indications that should have been picked up," said Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer who is now senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute. "Or maybe they were picked up, but they didn't spark necessary preparations to prevent these horrific terrorist acts from happening."
The Associated Press reviewed and verified key details from dozens of videos Hamas released over the last year, primarily through the social media app Telegram.
Using satellite imagery, the AP matched the location of the mocked-up town to a patch of desert outside Al-Mawasi, a Palestinian town on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip. A large sign in Hebrew and Arabic at the gate says "Horesh Yaron," the name of a controversial Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Bowman said there are indications that Hamas intentionally led Israeli officials to believe it was preparing to carry out raids in the West Bank, rather than Gaza. It was also potentially significant that the exercise has been held annually since 2020 in December, but was moved up by nearly four months this year to coincide with the anniversary of Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
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In a separate video posted to Telegram from last year's Strong Pillar exercise on Dec. 28, Hamas fighters are shown storming what appears to be a mockup Israeli military base, complete with a full-size model of a tank with an Israeli flag flying from its turret. The gunmen move through the cinderblock buildings, seizing other men playing the roles of Israeli soldiers as hostages.
Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli colonel who previously led the military intelligence department overseeing the Palestinian territories, said he was aware of the Hamas videos, but he was still caught off guard by the ambition and scale of Saturday's attack.
"We knew about the drones, we knew about booby traps, we knew about cyberattacks and the marine forces … The surprise was the coordination between all those systems," Milshtein said.
The seeds of Israel's failure to anticipate and stop Saturday's attack go back at least a decade. Faced with recurring attacks from Hamas militants tunneling under Israel's border fence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a very concrete solution — build a bigger wall.
With financial help from U.S. taxpayers, Israel completed construction of a $1.1 billion project to fortify its existing defenses along its 40-mile land border with Gaza in 2021. The new, upgraded barrier includes a "smart fence" up to 6-meters (19.7 feet) high, festooned with cameras that can see in the dark, razor wire and seismic sensors capable of detecting the digging of tunnels more than 200 feet below. Manned guard posts were replaced with concrete towers topped with remote-controlled machine guns.
Also read: Palestinians rush to buy food and struggle under strikes as Israel readies possible ground operation
"In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts," Netanyahu said in 2016, referring to Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. "At the end of the day as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding Israel in its entirety."
Shortly after dawn on Saturday, Hamas fighters pushed through Netanyahu's wall in a matter of minutes. And they did it on the relative cheap, using explosive charges to blow holes in the barrier and then sending in bulldozers to widen the breaches as fighters streamed through on motorcycles and in pick-up trucks. Cameras and communications gear were bombarded by off-the-shelf commercial drones adapted to drop hand grenades and mortar shells — a tactic borrowed directly from the battlefields of Ukraine.
Snipers took out Israel's sophisticated roboguns by targeting their exposed ammunition boxes, causing them to explode. Militants armed with assault rifles sailed over the Israeli defenses slung under paragliders, providing Hamas airborne troops despite lacking airplanes. Increasingly sophisticated homemade rockets, capable of striking Israel's capital of Tel Aviv, substituted for a lack of heavy artillery.
Satellite images analyzed by the AP show the massive extent of the damage done at the heavily fortified Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The images taken Sunday and analyzed Tuesday showed gaping holes in three sections of the border wall, the largest more than 70 meters (230 feet) wide.
Once the wall was breached, Hamas fighters streamed through by the hundreds. A video showed a lone Israeli battle tank rushing to the sight of the attack, only to be attacked and quickly destroyed in a ball of flame. Hamas then disabled radio towers and radar sites, likely impeding the ability of the Israeli commanders to see and understand the extent of the attack.
Hamas forces also struck a nearby army base near Zikim, engaging in an intense firefight with Israeli troops before overrunning the post. Videos posted by Hamas show graphic scenes with dozens of dead Israeli soldiers.
They then fanned out across the countryside of Southern Israel, attacking kibbutzim and a music festival. On the bodies of some of the Hamas militants killed during the invasion were detailed maps showing planned zones and routes of attack, according to images posted by Israeli first responders who recovered some of the the corpses. Israeli authorities announced Wednesday they had recovered the bodies of about 1,500 Islamic fighters, though no details were provided about where they were found or how they died.
Military experts told the AP the attack showed a level of sophistication not previously exhibited by Hamas, likely suggesting they had external help.
"I just was impressed with Hamas's ability to use basics and fundamentals to be able to penetrate the wall," said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Stephen Danner, a combat engineer trained to build and breach defenses. "They seemed to be able to find those weak spots and penetrate quickly and then exploit that breach."
Also read: Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks hit 1,078
Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based senior Hamas official, acknowledged that over the years the group had received supplies, financial support, military expertise and training from its allies abroad, including Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But he insisted the recent operation to breach Israel's border defenses was homegrown, with the exact date and time for the attack known only to a handful of commanders within Hamas.
Details of the operation were kept so tight that some Hamas fighters who took part in the assault Saturday believed they were heading to just another drill, showing up in street clothes rather than their uniforms, Barakeh said.
Last weekend's devastating surprise attack has shaken political support for Netanyahu within Israel, who pushed ahead with spending big to build walls despite some within his own cabinet and military warning that it probably wouldn't work.
In the days since Hamas struck, senior Israeli officials have largely deflected questions about the wall and the apparent intelligence failure. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, acknowledged the military owes the public an explanation, but said now is not the time.
"First, we fight, then we investigate," he said.
In his push to build border walls, Netanyahu found an enthusiastic partner in then-President Donald Trump, who praised Netanyahu's Iron Wall as a potential model for the expanded barrier he planned for the U.S. Southern border with Mexico.
Under Trump, the U.S. expanded a joint initiative with Israel started under the Obama Administration to develop technologies for detecting underground tunnels along the Gaza border defenses. Since 2016, Congress has appropriated $320 million toward the project.
But even with all its high-tech gadgets, the Iron Wall was still largely just a physical barrier that could be breached, said Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst with the London-based consulting firm Control Risks.
"The fence, no matter how many sensors ... no matter how deep the underground obstacles go, at the end of the day, it's effectively a metal fence," he said. "Explosives, bulldozers can eventually get through it. What was remarkable was Hamas's capability to keep all the preparations under wraps."
Israel orders the evacuation of 1.1 million people from northern part of Gaza, the UN says
Israel's military on Friday directed the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region that is home to 1.1 people — about half of the territory's population — within 24 hours, a U.N. spokesman said.
This could signal an impending ground offensive, though the Israeli military has not yet confirmed such an appeal. On Thursday it said that while it was preparing, a decision has not yet been made.
The order, delivered to the U.N., comes as Israel presses an offensive against Hamas militants. U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called the order "impossible" without "devastating humanitarian consequences."
Earlier, the Israeli military pulverized the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, prepared for a possible ground invasion and said its complete siege of the territory — which has left Palestinians desperate for food, fuel and medicine — would remain in place until Hamas militants free some 150 hostages taken during a grisly weekend incursion.
A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of U.S. weapons, offered a powerful green light to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza after Hamas' deadly attack on civilians and soldiers, even as international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza's 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt.
Also read: Palestinians rush to buy food and struggle under strikes as Israel readies possible ground operation
"Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home," Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that forces "are preparing for a ground maneuver" should political leaders order one.
A ground offensive in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas and where the population is densely packed into a sliver of land only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.
Hamas' assault Saturday and smaller attacks since have killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers — a toll unseen in Israel for decades — and the ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1,530 people in Gaza, according to authorities on both sides. Israel says roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel, and that hundreds of the dead in Gaza are Hamas members. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
Also read: Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks hit 1,078
As Israel pounds Gaza from the air, Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel. Amid concerns that the fighting could spread in the region, Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday put two Syrian international airports out of service.
The relentless barrage on Gaza — which the military said has so far involved 6,000 munitions — left Palestinians running through streets, carrying their belongings and looking for safety
A strike Thursday afternoon in the Jabaliya refugee camp took down a residential building on families sheltering inside, killing at least 45 people, Gaza's Interior Ministry said. At least 23 of the dead were under the age of 18, including a month-old child, according to a list of the casualties.
The home belonging to the al-Shihab family was packed with relatives who had fled bombing in other areas. Neighbors said a second house was hit at the same time, but the toll was not immediately known. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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"We can't flee because anywhere you go, you are bombed," one neighbor, Khalil Abu Yahia, said. "You need a miracle to survive here."
The number of people forced from their homes by the airstrikes soared 25% in a day, reaching 423,000 out of a population of 2.3 million, the U.N. said Thursday. Most crowded into U.N.-run schools.
Families were cutting down to one meal a day, said Rami Swailem, a 34-year-old lecturer at al-Azhar University, who had 32 relatives sheltering in his home. Water stopped coming to the building two days ago, and they have rationed what's left in a tank on the roof.
Alaa Younis Abuel-Omrain has been staying in a U.N. school after a strike on her home killed eight members of her family — her mother, aunt, a sister, a brother and his wife and their three children. Most bakeries stopped producing bread for lack of electricity.
"Even if there is food in some areas, we can't get to it because of strikes," she said.
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On Wednesday, Gaza's only power station ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators.
Hospitals, overwhelmed by a constant stream of wounded and running out of supplies, have only a few days worth of fuel before their power cuts off, aid officials say.
"Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues," said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Newborn incubators, kidney dialysis machines, X-ray equipment and more, are all dependent on power, he said.
Ambulance crews carrying bodies to the morgue at Gaza's biggest hospital, Shifa, found no space left. Dozens of full body bags were lined up in the hospital parking lot. Fourteen health facilities have been damaged in strikes, health officials said Thursday.
With Israel sealing off the territory, the only way in or out is through the crossing with Egypt at Rafah, but Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that airstrikes on Rafah have prevented it from operating. Egypt has been trying to convince Israel and the United States to allow aid and fuel through the crossing.
Israel is employing a new tactic of leveling whole neighborhoods, rather than just individual buildings. Hecht, the military spokesman, said targeting decisions were based on intelligence on locations being used by Hamas and that civilians were warned.
"Right now, we are focused on taking out their senior leadership," Hecht said. The military said strikes have hit Hamas' elite Nukhba forces, including command centers used by the fighters in Saturday's attack, and the home of a senior Hamas naval operative used to store weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "crush" Hamas after the militants stormed into the country's south on Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including killings of children in their homes and young people at a music festival. Netanyahu said Hamas' atrocities included beheading soldiers and raping women, descriptions that could not immediately be independently confirmed.
Amid grief and demands for vengeance among the Israeli public, the government is under intense pressure to topple Hamas rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.
In a video released Thursday, civilian Hamas figures defended the group's rampage and decried the civilian deaths in Gaza from six days of Israeli airstrikes. The solemn video lacked the bravado of a recording aired Saturday by Hamas's military wing that hailed "the greatest battle" as the massacres were still taking place.
Basem Naim, a former Hamas government minister, said that in the "swift collapse" of the Israeli military on Saturday, "chaos prevailed and civilians found themselves in the middle of the confrontation." The claim is contradicted by countless videos and survivor accounts of Hamas militants deliberately targeting and killing civilians in Israel.
Naim added that there would be no action to free the 150 captives taken back into Gaza while Israel's operation continued.
Israel was a nation in mourning. At a funeral for a 25-year-old woman killed with at least 260 other people at a desert rave, and at another service for a slain Israeli soldier, mourners sat cross-legged on the ground next to caskets, wailing or quietly weeping.
In Gaza, too, mourners buried families together in shrouds. At one funeral, they placed the battered body of a little girl in the arms of her slain father.
Brewing anger over Israeli military and intelligence failures in the surprise attack is being directed at Netanyahu's far-right government, which for months advanced a contentious legal overhaul that divided the country and affected the military.
In what appeared to be a first admission of fault from a government member, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told Israeli news outlet Ynet: "We are responsible. I, as a member of the government, am responsible. We were dealing with nonsense."
Israel's public diplomacy minister quit, the first fissure in Netanyahu's government since the onslaught.
Four previous conflicts ended with Hamas still firmly in control of the territory it has ruled since 2007. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists, massed forces near Gaza and evacuated tens of thousands of residents from nearby communities. A new war Cabinet, which includes a longtime opposition politician, was sworn in Thursday to direct the fight.
A high-ranking Hamas official, Saleh Al-Arouri, warned Thursday that any Israeli invasion of Gaza "will turn into a disaster for its army," saying the group was prepared to respond.
Blinken's visit underscored American backing for Israel's retaliation.
"You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourselves, but as long as America exists, you will never have to," Blinken said after meeting with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
Blinken said he told Netanyahu that it was "so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians."
Blinken will also meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, and Jordan's King Abdullah II. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin planned to visit Israel on Friday.
5 things to know as Israel declares war on Hamas following attack
Israel declared war Sunday as it bombarded the Gaza strip with airstrikes in retaliation for a major surprise attack by Hamas.
The declaration came a day after an unprecedented incursion by Hamas fighters who blew through a fortified border fence and gunned down civilians and soldiers in Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier during a major Jewish holiday.
As many as 1,000 Hamas fighters took part, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. The rampage included an assault on a crowded music festival where authorities had removed about 260 bodies by Sunday.
Israel struck back including with airstrikes that flattened a 14-story tower that held Hamas offices. At least 700 people were reported killed in Israel and more than 400 in Gaza.
Here are some key takeaways as the fighting continues:
WHAT DOES THE WAR DECLARATION MEAN?
Israel has previously carried out major military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza that it portrayed as wars, but without a formal declaration.
The declaration gives the green light for Israel to take "significant military steps” against Hamas. It came as the military continued efforts to stamp out the last groups of militants in southern Israel following the attack.
Israel hit more than 800 targets in Gaza by Sunday, its military said. That included airstrikes that leveled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the enclave’s northeast corner.
Hamas had been using the town as a staging ground for attacks, Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters. There was no immediate word on casualties, and most of the community’s population of tens of thousands likely fled before the bombardment.
The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which participated in Saturday's attack, said it was holding more than 30 Israelis among dozens of captives in Gaza. He said they would not be released until all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are freed.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE FROM THE U.S. AND OTHER NATIONS?Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel. The deployment — which also includes a host of ships and warplanes — underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to keep the conflict from growing.
Preliminary reports indicated at least four U.S. citizens were killed in the attacks, and seven more were missing, a U.S. official said.
The U.N. Security Council was holding an emergency meeting about the situation behind closed doors, and Germany’s development minister said her country would review its aid for Palestinian areas.
In Iran — a longtime supporter of Hamas and other militant groups — senior officials praised the incursion. President Ebrahim Raisi spoke by phone with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
Egypt spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, but an Egyptian official said Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage.”
A policeman in Egypt opened fire Sunday on Israeli tourists in the city of Alexandria, killing at least two Israelis and one Egyptian, authorities said. The U.S. embassy in Cairo urged Americans in the country to take precautions as the attack could be related to clashes between Israel and Palestinian militants.
IS ANYTHING BEING DONE TO PROTECT CIVILIANS?The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said 74,000 people in the Gaza Strip have taken shelter in dozens of its schools following calls from Israel for residents of border areas to evacuate. The number of displaced increased by nearly 50,000 since Saturday, when about 20,000 first moved into U.N.-operated schools.
The number is likely to increase amid heavy shelling and airstrikes in different parts of the overpopulated and besieged territory of 2 million people, the UNRWA said Sunday.
The agency said one of its schools was directly hit and suffered severe damage, but there were no casualties. Associated Press video from Sunday showed a large crater in the middle of the school, which had sheltered 225 people.
“Schools and other civilian infrastructure, including those sheltering displaced families, must never come under attack,” UNRWA said in a statement.
Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky. Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues are rarely addressed, setting the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.
WHAT PROMPTED THE ATTACK?Hamas officials cited long-simmering sources of tension including the dispute over the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.
In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.
Hamas also has cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands that Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir’s efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Tensions recently escalated with violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza frontier. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis that has sharpened public criticism of its rule.
Some political analysts have linked Hamas’ attack to current U.S.-brokered talks on normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So far, reports of possible concessions to Palestinians in the negotiations have involved the occupied West Bank, not Gaza.
WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING RECENTLY IN A DIVIDED ISRAEL?The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.
The protest movement accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab. That has bitterly divided society and unleashed turmoil within the military, which undreds of reservists threatening to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest.
Reservists are the backbone of the army, and protests within the ranks have raised concerns about cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu called up “an extensive mobilization of reserve forces” Saturday. ____
This story was first published on Oct. 8, 2023. It was updated on Oct. 10, 2023, to correct the name of the U.S. secretary of state. He is Antony Blinken, not Andrew Blinken.
Hopes for Israel-Saudi relations could become casualty of latest Mideast war
Less than three weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat beside President Joe Biden and marveled that a “historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia” seemed within reach — a diplomatic advance that he predicted could lead to lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Biden was equally optimistic, telling Netanyahu during their meeting in New York, “If you and I — 10 years ago — were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia, I think we’d look at each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?’”
Also read: Under heavy bombing, Palestinians in Gaza move from place to place, only to discover nowhere is safe
Now, the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinians after a devastating Hamas attack on Israeli soil is threatening to delay or derail the yearslong, country-by-country diplomatic push by the United States to improve relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The so-called normalization push, which began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords, is an ambitious effort to reshape the region and boost Israel’s standing in historic ways. But critics have warned that it skips past Palestinian demands for statehood.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Hamas attacks may have been driven in part by a desire to scuttle the United States’ most ambitious part of the initiative: the sealing of diplomatic relations between rivals Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Middle East’s two greatest powers share a common enemy in Iran, a generous military and financial sponsor of Hamas.
Also read: Israel vows complete siege on Gaza as it strikes Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas
Such a pact between Jerusalem and Riyadh would be a legacy-defining achievement for Biden, Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s one that could pave the way for even more Arab and Muslim-majority nations to abandon their rejection of Israel since its 1948 founding in lands long inhabited by Palestinians. Under Trump, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco all signed on to normalization agreements with Israel.
But the startling attack by Hamas — and much of the Arab world’s response to it — has also raised new questions about whether Palestinian ambitions for sovereignty can be put aside while the U.S. tries to help Israel move ahead with improving relations with the rest of its Middle East neighbors.
With Netanyahu vowing to turn all Hamas hideouts in Gaza into rubble, the region is now bracing for even more death and destruction and an expansive military operation by Israel. Biden is set to address the attacks on Israel in a White House speech on Tuesday afternoon.
Also read: Israel strikes and seals off Gaza after incursion by Hamas, which vows to execute hostages
“We’re going to see a rather significant operation from air, land and sea that costs many, many, many lives,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think this dynamic of normalization will likely slow down or come to a halt, at least for a period of time.”
The attacks were a shock to American, Israeli and Saudis officials, who all were riding high on the prospect that an Israeli-Saudi agreement was starting to come into focus.
Netanyahu, in a CNN interview last month, called the potential pact “a quantum leap” for the region. The Saudi crown prince also noted the steady progress, telling Fox News Channel, “every day we get closer.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan noted at a recent event hosted by The Atlantic that challenges in the Mideast remained, but the amount of time he was spending on crisis and conflict in the region compared with his recent predecessors was “significantly reduced.”
“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades,” Sullivan said.
In a matter of days, that optimism has vanished.
Social media showed crowds take to the streets with Palestinian flags in Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait and elsewhere in the hours after the Hamas attack. A policeman in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria opened fire on Israeli tourists, killing two Israelis and one Egyptian.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry in a statement soon after the attacks did not condemn Hamas. Instead, the ministry noted that it had repeatedly warned that Israel’s “occupation, the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and the repetition of systematic provocations” led to this moment.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the Saudi response.
“We still believe that normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia is not only good for the people of those two nations but for the American people and for everybody else in the region, and we have every intention to continue to encourage a process where normalization can occur,” Kirby said.
Yousef Munayyer, who heads the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center, a Washington think tank, said the Saudis in their statement were reminding the administration that “we’ve been telling you guys over and over again that if you ignore the Palestine issue the region’s going to explode. And I think there’s just been a tremendous amount of hubris on the part of the Biden administration thinking they could do that.”
To be certain, Biden and U.S. officials have privately made clear to Netanyahu that any deal needed to include significant concessions for Palestinians, although members of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition have made clear that an independent Palestinian state is not something they’d abide.
The Saudis had said they, too, expected Israel to make concessions. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said “there is no other way” to solve the conflict than by establishing a Palestinian state.
Other allies in the region had also underscored that Palestinian concerns could not be overlooked.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose country in the early 1990s became the second Arab nation after Egypt to sign a peace deal with Israel, told a global summit last month that the prospect of a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel offered promise for the Middle East but no guarantee of stability in itself.
“This belief, by some in the region, that you can parachute over Palestine, deal with the Arabs and work your way back — that does not work,” the Jordanian king said then. “And even those countries that have Abraham Accords with Israel have difficulty moving publicly on those issues when Israelis and Palestinians are dying. So unless we solve this problem, there will never be a true peace.”
U.S. officials say they intend to press ahead, but they also acknowledge efforts are unlikely to bear fruit while there is an active conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Blinken had been planning a trip to the Middle East, with stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, later this month, but those plans are now on hold, according to three U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.
While Blinken may still visit Israel and several neighboring countries to look for ways to ease tensions, he is no longer expected to go to Saudi Arabia, and the Morocco stop for a meeting of foreign ministers in the so-called Negev Forum will almost certainly be postponed, according to these officials. The Negev Forum brings together the top diplomats from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States to look at ways to advance Arab-Israeli cooperation with an eye also on improving conditions for the Palestinians.
Analysts note that the Saudis have reason not to walk away from efforts at forging a normalization deal.
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that in the long term bin Salman is looking to diversify the oil-rich kingdom’s economy and strengthen its security. As part of any pact, Saudi Arabia is pushing Biden for a nuclear cooperation deal and defense guarantees from the U.S.
“He needs normalization and will continue to move forward,” Dubowitz predicted. Of the crown prince, Dubowitz added, “the Saudis had better be careful because they are playing with fire in Washington.”
Israel pounds Gaza neighborhoods, as people scramble for safety in sealed-off territory
Israeli warplanes hammered the Gaza Strip neighborhood by neighborhood on Tuesday, reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety in the tiny, sealed-off territory as Israel vowed a retaliation for Hamas' surprise weekend attack that would “reverberate ... for generations.”
Aid organizations pleaded for the creation of humanitarian corridors to get aid into Gaza, warning that hospitals overwhelmed with wounded were running out of supplies. Israel has stopped all access of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza, and the sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing.
Also read: Israel strikes downtown Gaza City and mobilizes 300,000 reservists as war enters fourth day
The war began after Hamas militants stormed into Israel on Saturday, bringing gunbattles to its streets for the first time in decades. At least 1,600 lives have already been claimed on both sides, and perhaps hundreds more. Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza hold more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage, according to Israel.
The conflict is only expected to escalate. Israel expanded the mobilization of reservists to 360,000 on Tuesday, according to the country’s media. After days of fighting, Israel’s military said Tuesday morning that it had regained effective control over areas Hamas attacked in its south, and of the Gaza border.
Also read: Under heavy bombing, Palestinians in Gaza move from place to place, only to discover nowhere is safe
A looming question is whether Israel will launch a ground offensive into Gaza — a 40 kilometer-long (25 mile-long) strip of land wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to 2.3 million people and has been governed by Hamas since 2007.
The Israeli military said it struck hundreds of targets overnight in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, an upscale district that is home to ministries of the Hamas-run government, as well as universities, media organizations and the offices of aid organizations.
Also read: Israel vows complete siege on Gaza as it strikes Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas
Palestinian Civil Defense forces pulled Abdullah Musleh out of his basement together with 30 others after their apartment building was flattened by the airstrikes.
“I sell toys, not missiles,’’ the 46-year-old said, weeping. “I want to leave Gaza. Why do I have to stay here? I lost my home and my job.”
After hours of nonstop attacks, residents left their homes at daybreak to find buildings torn in half by airstrikes or reduced to mounds of concrete and rebar. Cars were flattened and trees burned out on residential streets that had been transformed into moonscapes.
The devastation signaled what appeared to be a new Israeli tactic: warning civilians to leave certain areas and then hitting those areas with unprecedented intensity. On Tuesday afternoon, the military warned residents of another nearby neighborhood to evacuate and move into the center of Gaza City.
“There is no safe place in Gaza right now, you see decent people being killed every day,” Hasan Jabar, a Gaza journalist, said after three other Palestinian journalists were killed in the Rimal bombardment. “I am genuinely afraid for my life.”
The bombardments and Israel’s threats to topple Hamas sharpened questions about the group’s strategy and objectives. But it is unclear what options it has in the face of the ferocity of Israel’s retaliation and the potential of losing much of its government infrastructure.
Hours after Saturday’s incursion began, a senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri said the group had planned for all possibilities, including “all-out war,” and was ready to suffer “severe blows.”
Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settlements in the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world’s apathy.
Al-Arouri’s s comments suggested Hamas expected the fight to spread to the West Bank and possibly for Lebanon’s Hezbollah to open a front in the north. But despite some eruptions of violence, neither has happened on a significant scale, especially amid a heavy Israeli lockdown on West Bank Palestinians.
In hopes of blunting the bombardment, Hamas has threatened to kill one Israeli civilian captive any time Israel targets civilians in their homes in Gaza “without prior warning.” Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, warned in response that “this war crime” would not be forgiven.
Israel, in turn, appears determined to crush Hamas no matter the cost.
The militants’ attack stunned Israel with a death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria — and those deaths happened over a longer period of time. It brought horrific scenes of Hamas militant gunning down civilians in their cars on the road, in streets of towns, and at a music festival attended by thousands in the desert near Gaza, while dragging men, women and children into captivity.
The Israeli military said more than 900 people have been killed in Israel. In Gaza and the West Bank, 704 people have been killed, according to authorities there; Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
The bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were found on Israeli territory, the military said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether those numbers overlapped with deaths previously reported by Palestinian authorities.
In Gaza, more than 187,000 people have fled their homes, the U.N. said, the most since a 2014 air and ground offensive by Israel uprooted about 400,000. The vast majority are sheltering in schools run by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Damage to three water and sanitation sites have cut off services to 400,000 people, the U.N. said.
On Monday, Israel announced a “complete siege” on the territory, halting deliveries of food, fuel, water, medicines, electricity and other supplies. That leaves the only access in and out through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
But that too was shut down Tuesday after Israeli strikes raised palls of smoke nearby. A day earlier, the Egyptian Red Crescent managed to get in one shipment of medical supplies.
Egyptian officials were talking with Israel and the U.S., pushing to set up humanitarian corridors in Gaza to deliver aid, an Egyptian official said. There were negotiations with the Israelis to declare the area around the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza as a “no fire zone,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The U.N.’s World Health Agency echoed the call for humanitarian corridors. It said that supplies it had pre-positioned for seven hospitals in Gaza have already run out amid the flood of wounded.
“With the number of casualties currently coming in, these hospitals are now running beyond their capacity,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jazarevic told reporters in Geneva. The head of the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said surgical equipment, antibiotics, fuel and other supplies were running out at two hospitals it runs in Gaza as well.
In a briefing Tuesday, army spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht suggested Palestinians should try to leave through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
The prospect of an exodus of Gazans into its territory has alarmed Egyptian officials. After Hecht’s comments, the Egyptian state-owned Al-Qahera news channel, which is close to security agencies, quoted an unnamed security official pushing back. “The occupation government is forcing Palestinians to choose between dying under bombardment or leaving their land,” the official was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Palestinians entered a fourth day under severe movement restrictions. Israeli authorities have sealed off crossings to the occupied territory and closed checkpoints, blocking movement between cities and towns. Clashes between rock-throwing Palestinians and Israeli forces in the territory since the start of the incursion have left 15 Palestinians dead, according to the UN.
IMF outlook worsens for a 'limping' world economy. Mideast war poses new uncertainty
The world economy has lost momentum from the impact of higher interest rates, the invasion of Ukraine and widening geopolitical rifts, and it now faces new uncertainty from the war between Israel and Hamas militants, International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday.
The IMF said it expects global economic growth to slow to 2.9% in 2024 from an expected 3% this year. The forecast for next year is down a notch from the 3% it predicted back in July.
The deceleration comes at a time when the world has yet to fully mend from a devastating but short-lived COVID-19 recession in 2020 and now could see fallout from the Middle East conflict — particularly to oil prices.
A series of previous shocks, including the pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine, has slashed worldwide economic output by about $3.7 trillion over the past three years compared with pre-COVID trends.
"The global economy is limping along, not sprinting," IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said at a news conference during the organization's annual meeting in Marrakech, Morocco.
The IMF expectation of 3% growth this year is down from 3.5% in 2022 but unchanged from its July projections.
It's "too early" to assess the impact on global economic growth from the days-old war between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza, Gourinchas said. He said the IMF was "monitoring the situation closely" and noted that oil prices have risen by about 4% in the past several days.
"We've seen that in previous crises and previous conflicts. And of course, this reflects the potential risk that there could be disruption either in production or transport of oil in the region," he said.
If sustained, a 10% increase in oil prices would reduce global economic growth by 0.15% and increase global inflation by 0.4%, Gourinchas said.
"But again, I emphasize that it's really too early to jump to any conclusion here," he added.
So far, the increase in oil prices has been "fairly muted," said Commerzbank commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch. He noted the absence of declarations of support for Hamas from key oil producers Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq, which would make it unlikely that they would restrict supply in response to the war.
So far, the world economy has displayed "remarkable resiliency," Gourinchas said, at a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks worldwide have aggressively raised interest rates to combat a resurgence in inflation.
The hikes have helped ease price pressures without putting many people out of work. That combination, he said, is "increasingly consistent" with a so-called soft landing — the idea that inflation can be contained without causing a recession.
The IMF sees global consumer price inflation dropping from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.9% this year and 5.8% in 2024.
The United States is a standout in the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook, which was completed before the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. The IMF upgraded its forecast for U.S. growth this year to 2.1% (matching 2022) and 1.5% in 2024 (up sharply from the 1% it had predicted in July).
The U.S., an energy exporter, has not been hurt as much as countries in Europe and elsewhere by higher oil prices, which shot up after Russia invaded Ukraine last year and jumped more recently because of Saudi Arabia's production cuts. And American consumers have been more willing than most to spend the savings they accumulated during the pandemic.
Things are gloomier in the 20 countries that share the euro currency and are more exposed to rising energy prices. The IMF downgraded eurozone growth to 0.7% this year and 1.2% in 2024. It actually expects the German economy to shrink by 0.5% this year before recovering to 0.9% growth next year.
Also read: IMF satisfied with BBS for efforts to meet conditions: Official
That's below even Russia's economy, which the IMF predicts will expand 2.2% this year before dropping to 1.1% growth next year.
The Chinese economy, the world's second biggest, is forecast to grow 5% this year and 4.2% in 2024 — both downgrades from what the IMF expected in July.
China's economy was expected to bounce back this year after the communist government ended draconian "zero-COVID" lockdowns that had crippled growth in 2022. But the country is struggling with troubles in its overbuilt housing market.
The IMF again expressed concern that the countries of the world were breaking into geopolitical blocs that could limit international trade and economic growth globally.
Also read: IMF reviewing reserves, macroeconomic condition ahead of next fund release
The United States and its allies have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and have sought to become less reliant on Chinese imports as tensions with Beijing grow.
The IMF noted that last year countries imposed nearly 3,000 new restrictions on trade, up from fewer than 1,000 in 2019. It sees international trade growing just 0.9% this year and 3.5% in 2024, down sharply from the 2000-2019 annual average of 4.9%.
Also read: IMF says Sri Lanka makes commendable progress in reforms
Under heavy bombing, Palestinians in Gaza move from place to place, only to discover nowhere is safe
Over 180,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are packed into United Nations shelters as Israeli warplanes pound the tiny territory of 2.3 million people after their Hamas militant rulers launched an unprecedented weekend attack on Israel.
Among them is 27-year-old Sabreen al-Attar. She sprang into action when she heard rocket after rocket whoosh over her farmland in Beit Lahiya just south of the Israeli border on Saturday. She knew from experience that Israeli retaliation would be swift and severe.
Grabbing her children, al-Attar rushed to one of the dozens of shelters set up in schools run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City. There, blasts of unprecedented intensity punctuated hours of steadily declining conditions Monday as food and water ran out.
“When I escape, I do it for my children,” she said, her hands trembling. “Their lives rest on my shoulders.”
But residents say there is no real escape in Gaza, which has been under a suffocating 16-year blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. When war breaks out, as it has four times since the Hamas militant group seized power in 2007, even United Nations facilities that are supposed to be safe zones risk becoming engulfed in the fighting. The U.N. said that an airstrike directly hit one of its shelters Sunday and damaged five other schools-turned-shelters on Monday. There was no immediate word of casualties.
In the downtown Rimal area, Gaza City’s bustling commercial district with high-rises home to international media and aid organizations, al-Attar hoped she would be safe. Rimal had until then not been an immediate Israeli target, unlike border towns or densely populated refugee camps.
But as the Israeli military went neighborhood to neighborhood with rapid and intensifying airstrikes, the heavy bombardments reached the heart of Gaza City, transforming the affluent neighborhood into an uninhabitable desert of craters. Rimal was also hit by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza’s bloody 2021 war, but not to this extent.
Israeli bombs that struck Gaza's flagship Islamic University, government ministries and high-rises in Rimal, starting Monday afternoon, also blew out the windows of al-Attar’s shelter, shattering glass everywhere, she said. Life there, crammed with 1,500 other families, was full of danger and deprivation but Al-Attar said she had no choice but to stay, telling her boys — 2-year-old Mohammed and 7-year-old Nabil — to keep away from the windows.
Read: Everything you need to know about Hamas
“The night was very, very difficult,” she said Tuesday. “We have nowhere else to go.”
The bombing in Rimal and the potential risks of sheltering in U.N. schools highlighted the desperate search by Gaza civilians for refuge, with the territory's safe spaces rapidly shrinking. Ahead of the Israeli military's warning to civilians on Monday that Rimal would be hit, families staggered into the streets with whatever belongings they could carry and without a destination.
In a briefing Tuesday, Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht suggested Palestinians should try to leave through the Gaza border crossing with Egypt — a seemingly impractical suggestion.
While Hamas officials operating the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing said Tuesday that Gazans who had registered in advance could cross into Egypt, the number of those allowed to travel has typically been small. That has led to backlogs and waiting times of days or weeks, even in calm times.
“There is never a Plan B here,” said 31-year-old Maha Hussaini, as she watched terrified Rimal residents flood her Gaza City neighborhood further south just as bombs began to fall there, too.
So far, the Gaza toll stands at about 700 dead and thousands wounded, according to Gaza health officials, a punishing response to the militant group’s attack that has killed over 900 Israelis. More than 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been taken captive.
Read: Israel-Hamas war: Trust in Israeli army shattered
Israel says it takes pains to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas sites in Gaza. But the military long has carried out airstrikes in crowded residential neighborhoods, inevitably harming civilians and civilian infrastructure. Hamas authorities on Monday reported the destruction of seven mosques and 15 civilian homes that killed many members of the same family.
The Israeli defense minister also has ordered a “complete siege” on the already blockaded Gaza Strip, vowing to block food, water and fuel from the territory.
“None of us even know what ‘safe’ means in Gaza,” said 28-year-old Hind Khoudary, who was hunkered down in the upscale Roots Hotel as deafening explosions thundered.
“These are not people with (militant) affiliations, these are people from higher classes, foreign organizations and media," she said of those around her. "But on days like this, there is zero difference.”
Residents described a dangerous dance around the heavy Israeli bombing — fleeing home, crashing at relatives’ apartments, fleeing again to U.N. schools and then starting all over again in an attempt to find some sense of safety.
Read more: Israel vows complete siege on Gaza as it strikes Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas
“It is better than dying,” said 37-year-old Muhammad al-Bishawi, exhausted as he hustled between a U.N. shelter in Gaza City and his home in Beit Lahiya to secure food and other supplies before returning.
On Saturday after the massive Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Gaza civilians of the horrors to come, promising to unleash the full force of the Israeli military on the strip.
“Get out now,” he said, addressing Palestinians in Gaza. “Because we will operate everywhere.”
Khoudary was listening to him as the airstrikes intensified, trapped in her home with nowhere to run.
“Why didn’t he tell us where to flee?” she asked. “Because we’d really like to know.”
Everything you need to know about Hamas
Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched an attack inside Israel over the weekend, killing hundreds and taking others hostage. Its unprecedented breach of the border sent fighters inside border communities and military installations, shocked Israel and its allies, and raised questions about the group’s capabilities and strategy.
WHAT IS HAMAS?
The group was founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee living in Gaza, during the first intifada, or uprising, which was marked by widespread protests against Israel’s occupation.
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, and a recognition of the group’s roots and early ties to one of the Sunni world’s most prominent groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in the 1920s.
The group has vowed to annihilate Israel and has been responsible for many suicide bombings and other deadly attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers.
The U.S. State Department has designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. The European Union and other Western countries also consider it a terrorist organization.
Hamas won 2006 parliamentary elections elections and in 2007 violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority, dominated by rival Fatah movement, administers semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel responded to the Hamas takeover with a blockade on Gaza, restricting movement of people and goods in and out of the territory in a step it says is needed to keep the group from developing weapons. The blockade has ravaged Gaza's economy, and Palestinians accuse Israel of collective punishment.
Over the years, Hamas received backing from Arab countries, such as Qatar and Turkey. Recently, it's moved closer to Iran and its allies.
Read more: What to know as war between Israel and Hamas rages on for a fourth day
WHO ARE HAMAS' LEADERS?
Hamas founder and spiritual leader Yassin — a paralyzed man who used a wheelchair — spent years in Israeli prisons and oversaw the establishment of Hamas' military wing, which carried out its first suicide attack in 1993.
Israeli forces have targeted Hamas leaders throughout the years, killing Yassin in 2004.
Khaled Mashaal, an exiled Hamas member who survived an earlier Israeli assassination attempt, became the group’s leader soon after.
Yehia Sinwar, in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in exile, are Hamas' current leaders. They realigned the group’s leadership with Iran and its allies, including Lebanon's Hezbollah. Since then, many of the group’s leaders relocated to Beirut.
Read more: Israel strikes and seals off Gaza after incursion by Hamas, which vows to execute hostages
WHAT DOES HAMAS WANT?
Hamas has always espoused violence as a means to liberate occupied Palestinian territories and has called for the annihilation of Israel.
Hamas has carried out suicide bombings and over the years fired tens of thousands of increasingly powerful rockets from Gaza into Israel. It also established a network of tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt to smuggle in weapons, as well as attack tunnels burrowing into Israel.
In recent years, Hamas had appeared to be more focused on running Gaza than attacking Israel.
WHY NOW?
In recent years, Israel has made peace deals with Arab countries without having to make concessions in its conflict with the Palestinians. The U.S. has recently been trying to broker a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a bitter rival of Hamas' Iranian backers.
Meanwhile, Israel's new far-right government was working to cement Israeli settlements in the West Bank despite Palestinian opposition.
Hamas leaders say an Israeli crackdown on militants in the West Bank, continued construction of settlements — which the international community considers to be illegal — thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails, and its ongoing blockade of Gaza pushed it to attack.
Its leaders say hundreds of its 40,000 fighters took part in the assault. Israel says the group has about 30,000 fighters and an arsenal of rockets, including some with a range of about 250 kilometers (155 miles), and unmanned drones.
Read more: Israel-Hamas war: Humanitarian groups scrambling to assist civilians