Gaza’s 2.3 million civilians faced a deepening struggle for food, water and safety Sunday and braced for a looming invasion a week after Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on Israel. While hundreds of thousands sought to heed Israel’s order to evacuate the north, others huddled at hospitals there.
Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of US warships in the region, positioned themselves along Gaza’s border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group. A week of blistering airstrikes have demolished entire neighbourhoods but failed to stem militant rocket fire into Israel.
The IDF military said Sunday that it would refrain from targeting a single route south from 10 am to 1 pm, again urging Palestinians to leave the north en masse. The military offered two corridors and a longer window the day before. The UN and aid groups have said that such a rapid exodus, along with Israel’s complete siege of the 40-kilometre-long (25-mile-long) coastal territory would cause untold human suffering. The World Health Organisation said the evacuation “could be tantamount to a death sentence” for the more than 2,000 patients in northern hospitals, including newborns in incubators and people in intensive care.Gaza’s hospitals are expected to run out of generator fuel within two days, according to the UN, which said that that would endanger the lives of thousands of patients.
