The United Nations said early on Friday it had been told by the Israeli military that some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave's south within the next 24 hours.
Israel's military chief said "Now is the time for war" as his country amassed tanks near the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned ground invasion to annihilate the Palestinian militant Hamas group that rules the enclave and was behind deadly weekend attacks.
You really think 1.1 million can feasibly leave a city three times as dense as LA in the middle of complete electrical loss, food and water shortages? In 24 hours?
You know how many are about to die just getting out? How many will die because they couldn't get out in time?
Tens of thousands. The ones who do make it out will be homeless and destitute. More dead. Food and water situation in the south is going to be abysmal. More dead.
And I would be utterly unsurprised if the city is never returned.
The only solution to the “atrocities” has always been: to end apartheid, stop genocide, and give the Palestinians back their land. One state, secular, for all peoples and religions. One Palestine.
Before European Zionism and Britain, Jewish people, Muslims and Christians lived in the region in peace. Palestinians are also the direct descendants of the Jews and other Canaanite peoples that lived there, since before the Romans. They just changed their religion with time, like it happens all over the world.
An ethnostate based on settler colonialism and genocide can’t be accepted.
I think it's about leaving their resources behind, like weapons, plans, and bombs. The tunnels are already collapsed due to the deep bombing, so if hamas wants to move anything, it will have to be done so in plain sight.
Hamas, which controls the strip, told residents to stay put, and vowed to fight to the last drop of blood. By Friday afternoon there was no sign of any mass exodus as Israel prepared its onslaught.
JERUSALEM/GAZA/TEL AVIV, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Israel's military chief said "Now is the time for war" as his country amassed tanks near the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned ground invasion to annihilate the Palestinian militant Hamas group that rules the enclave and was behind deadly weekend attacks.
On Friday he was due to meet Jordan's King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as part of a Middle East tour aimed at stopping spillover from the war.
America's top diplomat, Blinken planned to visit key U.S. allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates - some with influence on Hamas, an Islamist group backed by Iran.
Israel's parliament approved Netanyahu's emergency unity government late on Thursday, including a number of centrist opposition lawmakers, to display the country's united determination to fight Hamas.
Japan has arranged for a charter flight to depart Tel Aviv on Saturday for its citizens wishing to leave Israel, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters on Friday.
Gazans, mainly descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled from homes in Israel at its founding in 1948, have suffered economic collapse and repeated Israeli bombardment under a blockade since Hamas seized power there 16 years ago.
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