Hundreds of thousands of residents of the northern Gaza Strip are moving south ahead of an expected Israeli ground invasion.
Palestinian men, women and children loaded cars and trucks with mattresses and their belongings.
Others walked dragging suitcases and carrying their children.
More than a million people live in the area where Israel announced Friday that civilians had 24 hours to evacuate.
While up to 300,000 Israeli troops massed at the border, Israel extended the evacuation deadline several times.
Still, many Palestinians refused to leave their homes, reportedly fearing death or injury on escape routes, the Washington Post reported.
An explosion hit a convoy on an evacuation route in Gaza on Friday, killing several people, including children.
Ahmed Okal, 43, who lives in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, said he feared civilians traveling south could be targeted by airstrikes.
Palestinians flee their homes amid Israeli attacks after Israel’s call for more than 1 million civilians in northern Gaza to move south.REUTERS
“I’m definitely scared, very scared, but I won’t risk the lives of my wife and children on the way south,” he said, referring to reports that some of those fleeing were killed in an airstrike.
“We will die inside our homes,” he said. “The road is dangerous.”
Hamas has told Gaza residents to stay home.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians arrived from northern Gaza along two evacuation routes.AP
The Israeli military claimed that Hamas had set up blockades to prevent Gazans from evacuating Gaza City and the north, although it is unclear whether the massive traffic jams are what obstructed escape routes.
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel.
“They have time to move south, they have to start moving,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Richard Hecht said Saturday morning.
“We understand this will take time,” he added, but declined to say whether the evacuation deadline would be extended again, or for how long.
As thousands of people fled northern Gaza, many residents refused to leave for fear of being hit by Israeli strikes like the one that hit a convoy on Friday. MOHAMMED SABER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Videos verified by CNN showed devastating scenes of extensive destruction after Friday’s explosion on Salah Al-Deen Street.
Numerous bodies, including those of children, were seen in a truck that appears to have been used to transport people out of Gaza City.
In the videos you can also see very burned and damaged cars.
Parents carrying their children and whatever belongings they could carry with them began to leave northern Gaza.AP
Israel’s military said it could not confirm reports of an attack at the site.
United Nations officials deemed the order to evacuate 1.1 million people in a single day “impossible.”
Another Gaza City resident, Rawan Abu Hamda, 41, attempted to evacuate through one of the escape routes, but returned home when she heard reports of Friday’s attack that hit civilians trying to leave.
He told the Washington Post that hundreds of other families have also stayed in his neighborhood, many of them sheltering near al-Shifa hospital.
They hope the hospital will not be targeted by airstrikes, although the roof of the infirmary collapsed on October 9 after a bombing nearby.
Gaza residents loaded their cars and trucks with mattresses and some belongings as they prepared to evacuate northern Gaza.MOHAMMED SABRE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The Israeli military on Saturday extended the evacuation deadline for Gaza City’s main hospital by an additional 10 hours as a ground invasion targeting Hamas terrorists loomed, but doctors there refused to budge.
The worst attack on Israel in 50 years: how we got here
2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip more than three decades after seizing the territory from Egypt in the Six-Day War.
2006: The terrorist group Hamas wins the Palestinian legislative elections.
2007: Hamas takes control of Gaza in a civil war.
2008: Israel launches a military offensive against Gaza after Palestinian terrorists fire rockets at the city of Sderot.
2023: Hamas launches largest attack on Israel in 50 years.
More than 1,300 Israelis have been killed, more than 3,000 wounded and at least 100 taken hostage, with the death toll expected to rise after Hamas terrorists fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of militants into Israeli cities. .
Hamas terrorists were seen taking women hostage and parading them down the street in gruesome videos.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “We are at war” and promised that Hamas would pay “a price it has never known.”
Gaza health officials report that at least 1,400 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 injured.
The Palestinian Red Crescent “cannot evacuate the hospital” the group said in a defiant statement publicizing his intention to ignore the new 9 a.m. ET deadline.
“Al Quds Hospital is providing life-saving services to a large number of Palestinian patients and wounded… in addition to hundreds of civilians who have taken refuge” there, the PRCS added.
With cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn