Israel issues evacuation orders for Maghazi areas
Israel has issued yet another round of evacuation orders, this time for neighbourhoods in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp.
Israel’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee made the announcement in a social media post, listing blocks in Maghazi, as well as several other neighbourhoods in central Gaza, that residents should flee from.
He said Hamas had fired rockets from the areas and Israel’s military would respond “forcefully”. “For your own safety, move immediately to the humanitarian zone”, Adraee said.
It is the third time Israel has ordered new Gaza neighbourhoods to evacuate in as many days, displacing tens of thousands of people.
A displaced, disabled Palestinian man flees Hamad City following an Israeli evacuation order, in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on August 16
Israeli evacuation orders no longer prelude to ground operations: Monitors
Israel’s mass evacuation orders for areas of the Gaza Strip are “no longer a reliable indicator” that an Israeli ground operation is imminent, war monitors report.
Addressing the most recent orders for people to flee Beit Hanoon city in the north of Gaza, US-based think tanks the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Critical Threats Project (CTP) said Israeli forces had already issued evacuation orders for the area on August 7.
But Israeli ground forces did not advance on Beit Hanoon despite the earlier order for people to leave, and they have “not conducted clearing operations in all of the recent evacuation zones”, according to the latest ISW-CTP joint report.
The ISW-CTP also said that Palestinian fighters launched rockets and mortar shells targeting Israeli forces deployed on the Netzarim and Philadelpi corridors on Friday, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades snipers targeted Israeli forces to the east of Khan Younis, and the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement used a “barrel bomb” against an Israeli armoured personnel carrier in Rafah city.
Hamas fighters also launched two separate rocket barrages targeting Israeli territory on Friday, including five missiles fired at Israel’s Nirim area, east of Khan Younis.
Gaza bracing for ‘worst-case scenario’ after polio case confirmed
Relief workers are preparing for a potential outbreak of polio in Gaza, where the first case has been confirmed in 25 years and wastewater has been found with traces of the virus.
“We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, CARE International’s Gaza response director, told AP.
“We are not optimistic because we know that doctors could also be missing the warning signs,” he said.
As we’ve been reporting, UN agencies are urging for a seven-day truce at the end of this month to carry out a mass vaccine drive in the enclave. Without such a truce, the campaign will not be successful, they say.
Al-Awda Hospital nearly out of fuel: Director
Mohammed Salha, the acting director of the hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, says that operations will cease within 24 hours if more fuel to run the facility’s generators does not arrive.
Salha said al-Awda is trying to run small generators as much as possible to conserve fuel so that it can continue to provide healthcare for the sick and wounded. He also said the facility is rapidly running out of medical supplies, and appealed to the UN’s World Health Organization for a restock.
Only 11% of Gaza is part of ‘humanitarian zone’: UNRWA
Israel’s latest evacuation orders have pushed thousands more families out of their homes and shrunk Gaza’s declared “humanitarian zone” even further, says the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Now, the “humanitarian zone” encompasses just 11 percent of the war-torn enclave, said the UN agency, with displaced people left in “chaos and fear”.
As we reported earlier, Israel issued two new evacuation orders today — telling residents of numerous neighbourhoods in northern and central Gaza to flee immediately.
Thousands of families continue to be displaced in #Gaza as Israeli authorities issue new evacuation orders. The so-called “humanitarian zone” has shrunk to just 11% of the #GazaStrip, causing chaos and fear among the displaced.
They have nowhere safe to go. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/0VC7QhOuqe
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 17, 2024
450,000 affected by central Gaza evacuation orders: Civil defence
The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza has appealed to the United Nations to push Israel to stop repeated mass displacement of people in the enclave. The call comes after Israel issued several new evacuation orders, covering swaths of northern and central Gaza, within days, further shrinking the territory’s “humanitarian zone”.
In a statement, the civil defence said the latest evacuation orders in central Gaza had affected more than 450,000 people, “reopening their wounds”. “We appeal to the United Nations and the International Court of Justice to intervene to stop this policy,” said the statement, claiming it “violates humanitarian law”.
