Palestinian girl Fulla Al-Laham, 4, who was wounded in an Israeli strike that killed 14 family members, including her parents and all her siblings, at a hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. /Mohammed Salem/Reuters
The Israeli army is awaiting a "political decision" on the timing of a major ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, military spokesmen said Sunday, as besieged Palestinians stepped up desperate efforts to flee the enclave's north before the assault.
In the eight days since Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,300 Israelis in a surprise attack, Israel has responded with a devastating bombing campaign that has claimed over 2,300 lives in Gaza. Fear and chaos reign in the 40-kilometer long strip that is one of the world's most densely populated areas, with no safe place for the large numbers of internally displaced Palestinians to flee to.
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Entire Gaza city blocks lay in ruins and hospitals were overflowing with thousands of wounded in the besieged territory on Sunday, as the Palestinian Health Ministry said that 300 people had been killed and 800 more had been injured in Gaza during the last 24 hours. But there are fears of worse to come, after Israel on Friday told 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to flee south ahead of a massive land incursion into the Strip.
A Palestinian man carries a wounded girl at the site of Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. /Yasser Qudih/Reuters
With thousands still attempting to use what Israel called "safe routes" to get out of the area - an airstrike along one such route reportedly killed 70 civilians on Friday - Israel is facing pressure to hold back on any invasion until civilians have been given every chance to leave. Since originally saying the deadline for leaving would expire on Saturday evening, the Israeli military has now not said when the safe passage windows will close as bombing continues in Gaza's south.
However, military spokespersons Lieutenant Richard Hecht and Daniel Hagari told separate briefings on Sunday that "a political decision" would set off any land invasion. "We will be holding discussions with our political leadership," Hecht said. Visiting some of the tens of thousands of troops now massed at the Gaza border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised in a rare public address that "more is coming."
Fleeing a coming ground invasion
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas in retaliation for a rampage in which its fighters stormed through Israeli towns a week ago, shooting civilians and seizing scores of hostages in the worst attack on civilians in Israel's history.
The army has called up 300,000 reserve units while convoys of trucks have rushed heavy armor to the south near the Gaza border, as planeloads of Israelis return from around the world.
Dr. Adva Gutman-Tirosh and Lee Dan, whose family members were abducted and taken into Gaza, comfort each other. /Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Ahead of its planned land attack, Israeli special forces have made forays into Gaza, recovering the bodies of some of the 150 hostages feared taken by Hamas. However, a full Israeli ground invasion in Gaza threatens to bring the kind of intense house-to-house fighting that devastated Iraq's Mosul and Fallujah in years past and the further mass displacement of Palestinians.
One million people have already reportedly been forced to leave their homes in Gaza, with the Israeli military on Friday telling the entire population of the northern Strip, which includes the enclave's biggest settlement Gaza City, to move south immediately. A steady stream of families in overloaded cars, trucks and donkey carts have since headed south, with Israel saying on Saturday it would guarantee the safety of Palestinians fleeing on two main roads until 4:00 p.m.
However, the Gazan authorities have told people the roads out are unsafe, reporting that dozens of people had been killed in strikes on cars and trucks carrying refugees earlier this weekend. Israel claims Hamas is preventing people from leaving in order to use them as "human shields," which Hamas denies.
Egypt to the south, controls the only other crossing with Gaza but has so far refused to open it to help evacuate foreign citizens unless aid convoys are allowed to enter, while President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's office said Egypt rejected any plan to displace Palestinians "to the detriment of other countries." Amid widespread fears of further dispossession, Hamas's leader Ismail Haniyeh said that Palestinians would "remain in our land."
Humanitarian catastrophe
Alarm has also grown about a wider humanitarian crisis in Gaza where Israel has cut off water, food and power, vowing to maintain the complete siege until all hostages are freed. "The situation is catastrophic," said Jumaa Nasser, who traveled from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza with his wife, mother and seven children. "We've had no food or sleep. We don't know what to do. I've given my fate up to God."
Gaza's electricity outage threatens to cripple the enclave's life-support systems, from sea water desalination plants to food refrigeration and baby incubators in hospitals. International agencies including the UN and the Red Cross have warned of a "humanitarian catastrophe" under such conditions.
A lorry carries bodies wrapped in burial shrouds of the Abu al-Awf family and other victims, displaced from northern Gaza and killed in a home housing internally displaced Palestinians. /Mahmud Hams/AFP
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi charged that Israel's actions had gone "beyond the scope of self-defense" and said it must "cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza", while Russia has called on the UN's Security Council to vote Monday on a draft resolution for setting up a humanitarian ceasefire.
Anger over what the UN describes as an "unsustainable" situation has flared in much of the Muslim world and beyond, with pro-Palestinian protesters rallying around the world. More urgently for Israel, fears of pushback from militant groups allied with regional Israeli rival Iran - which have a strong presence in Lebanon and Syria - have heightened the risk of a multi-front war for Israel's army.
The past week has seen repeated clashes on Israel's northern frontier with Lebanon where the Hezbollah movement has tried to send small groups of militants across the heavily fortified border. Netanyahu's national security adviser on Saturday warned the group not to take action that could lead to Lebanon's "destruction," while the U.S. deployed a second aircraft carrier to the region in an effort to "deter hostile actions against Israel."
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged his "unwavering" support for Israel in a phone call to Prime Minister Netanyahu, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region, meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. He was due to travel later to Egypt and then again to Israel.
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