Israel-Hamas war: Gaza ‘on brink of collapse’, UN warns, after ‘impossible’ order to evacuate 1.1 million
The United Nations has said it is “impossible” for Palestinians to move to the south of Gaza in the next 24 hours, after citizens were ordered to evacuate by Israel’s military.
It came as the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency warned Gaza was becoming a “hell hole” and was on the “brink of collapse”.
The evacuation order is the strongest hint yet from Israel that it is preparing to launch a ground offensive on Gaza almost a week after Hamas’s surprise assault.
It also began dropping leaflets written in Arabic into the Gaza Strip urging people in the north of the area to move south across the Wadi Gaza – a piece of coastal wetland with a river running through the middle.
A leaflet urging civilians in the north of Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south
UN officials in Gaza “were informed by their liaison officers in the Israeli military that the entire population of Gaza north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within the next 24 hours,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement in New York.
“This amounts to approximately 1.1 million people,” he added, or nearly half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
Mr Dujarric said the UN “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences”.
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Warning leaflets drop in Gaza
It came after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said “this evacuation is for your own safety”, but in response, Hamas has called the warning “fake propaganda” and urged Palestinians “not to fall for it”.
The UN has appealed for the order to be rescinded to avoid turning “what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation”.
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A map showing the evacuation area of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, down to the Wadi Gaza
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‘This evacuation is for your own safety’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman on Friday that he “rejects the forced displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
He said such an event would constitute a “second Nakba” – referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation – adding that humanitarian corridors must be allowed in the blockaded coastal enclave immediately to prevent a humanitarian disaster.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) called for an “immediate intervention” from the international community to prevent a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
“We don’t have the means to evacuate the sick and the wounded people in our hospitals or the elderly and the disabled,” a spokesperson for the humanitarian group said.
Palestinians flee their homes heading toward the southern part of the Gaza Strip
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said local health authorities in Gaza had informed its officials it was impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients from northern Gaza within 24 hours.
“There are severely ill people whose injuries mean their only chances of survival is being on life support, such as mechanical ventilators,” said WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.
“So moving those people is a death sentence. Asking health workers to do so is beyond cruel.”
In other key developments:
• It’s “highly likely” Britons are among Hamas’s hostages, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps says
• Hamas claimed Israel killed 13 hostages with its strikes on Gaza
• Humza Yousaf’s mother-in-law shared a tearful plea from Gaza
• UK navy to send ships and begin surveillance flights over Israel
• Several UK Jewish schools close for safety reasons
Israeli tanks head towards the Gaza Strip border. Pic: AP
The Israel Defence Forces fire artillery shells into Gaza. File pic: DPA/AP
Sunak shows support as number of dead grows
Earlier, Rishi Sunak told Israel’s prime minister to “protect ordinary Palestinians” as it continues its fightback against Hamas.
A Number 10 spokeswoman said Mr Sunak “reiterated that the UK stands side by side with Israel in fighting terror” in his phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu, adding Hamas should “never again be able to perpetrate atrocities against the Israeli people”.
Read more on this story:
Why Israel is braced for Hezbollah attack from Lebanon
How negotiators will be working to free Hamas hostages
Smoke billows following Israeli strikes in Gaza
Israel said a total of 1,300 of its people have died since Saturday’s raids as its troops continue to mass along the barbed wire fence ahead of a possible ground offensive on Gaza, with 300,000 reservists called up.
The country is targeting Hamas after the militant group carried out a wave of attacks in Israel as gunmen stormed the border and killed hundreds in their homes – as well as 260 others at a music festival.
Meanwhile, at least 500 children and 276 women are among the estimated 1,537 Palestinians who have died with more than 6,000 wounded, the Gaza health ministry has said.
White phosphorous used, human rights group claims
On the ground in Gaza, it has been claimed white phosphorous has been used as a weapon, which can indiscriminately burn people, thermally and chemically.
Human Rights Watch said Israel used the chemical in Gaza and Lebanon, claiming it had verified footage from 10 and 11 October, respectively, showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border.
It said the weapon’s use “violates the international humanitarian law prohibition on putting civilians at unnecessary risk”.
Asked for comment on the allegations, Israel’s military said it was “currently not aware of the use of weapons containing white phosphorous in Gaza”.
Elsewhere on Friday, tens of thousands of people gathered in Tahrir Square in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad to show solidarity with Palestine.
Protesters also took to the streets of Iran – a key backer of Hamas – in support of the Palestinian people.
A huge crow gathered in Baghdad, Iraq, on Friday to show solidarity with Palestinians
Jordan’s King Abdullah on Friday responded to Israel’s evacuation order, and warned its neighbour against any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians.
In a statement published by the Royal Court, he said there should be no “spillover” of the ongoing crisis into neighbouring countries.
Jordan, which borders Israel to the southeast, maintains peaceful – though often tense – relations with the Israeli government.
A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday.
But who is Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faces sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.
The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.
Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash
Mr Raisi is a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some have suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran as he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.
Raisi and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.
The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
People light a fire during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini in Tehran, 2022. Pic: Reuters
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Ms Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
The president is seen as a frontrunner to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured). Pic: Reuters
The president also supported Iran’s unprecedented decision in April to launch a drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war with Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza responsible for the 7 October attacks which saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel.
Involvement in mass executions
Mr Raisi is sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under the president, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections.
Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine and has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He successfully ran for the presidency back in August 2021 in a vote that got the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history as all of his potentially prominent opponents were barred from running under Iran’s vetting system.
A presidency run in 2017 saw him lose to Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
‘Very involved in anything’
Alistair Bunkall, Sky News’s Middle East correspondent, said the president is “a major figure in Iranian political and religious society” but “he’s not universally popular by any means” as his administration has seen a series of protests in the past few years against his and the government’s “hardline attitude”.
Mr Raisi is nonetheless “considered one of the two frontrunners to potentially take over” the Iranian regime when the current supreme leader dies, Bunkall said.
He added the president would have been “instrumental” in many of Iran’s activities in the region as he “would’ve been very involved in anything particularly what has been happening in Israel and the surrounding areas like Lebanon and Gaza and the Houthis over the last seven and a bit months”.
World
Iran president helicopter crash: The ‘butcher of Tehran’ has a fearsome reputation – and many will be fearing instability
Ebrahim Raisi has been one of Iran’s hardest of hardliners, a fanatical and absolute believer in the Iranian revolution and its mission.
If he has died on a mountainside in the north of the country, as looks increasingly likely, it will be a major moment for the country and the region.
It will remove from the Middle East one of its toughest most uncompromising players.
Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash
A man who launched the first direct attack on Israel in his country’s history and a hardliner on whose watch hundreds of Iranians have been killed in the brutal repression of recent women-led protests, Mr Raisi has a huge amount of blood on his hands.
The president is seen as a frontrunner to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured). Pic: Reuters
His fearsome reputation goes back to the 1980s – a period that earned him the dubious soubriquet the Butcher of Tehran.
He sat on the so-called Death Panel of four Islamic judges who sentenced thousands of Iranian prisoners of conscience to their deaths during the purge of 1988.
Mr Raisi has personally been involved in two of the darkest periods of Iranian repression. And he was seen as one of the favourite contenders to replace the elderly and ailing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Read more:
Ebrahim Raisi: Who is Iranian president?
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His accession to that role would have guaranteed years more of the same… and years more meddling abroad.
Raisi and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
With Mr Raisi as president, Iran has engaged in more and more adventurous interventions beyond its borders.
With him in charge Iran has helped Houthis menace international shipping in the Red Sea; helped Hezbollah engage Israel in a seven-month duel over its northern border; aided militia in Iraq to attack, and in some cases kill, American soldiers; and helped Hamas fight its own war against the Jewish state.
After two years of unrest, economic failure and stuttering recovery from the pandemic, Iran is divided and weakened.
Its government has lost much of its credibility and support because of the atrocities it has meted out to its women.
Few outside the regime and its ranks of ardent followers will mourn a man who has overseen the death, incarceration or torture of so many.
Iranians may dare yearn for less repressive times without him. Outsiders will hope for a less troublesome Iran.
Read more:
Who is Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
But there are plenty more where he came from and the Supreme Leader is likely to find another hardliner to replace him.
The fear will be of instability in the run-up to elections. The government has been undermined by recent events, its Supreme Leader is unwell.
If Mr Raisi is dead, his government will try to secure the succession as quickly and smoothly as it can.
Ukrainian forces have launched “co-ordinated strikes” against an airbase in southern Russia that is used to unleash glide bomb attacks on Ukraine, a military source has said.
The operation, which took place overnight on Saturday, had “significantly reduced” Moscow’s ability to use glide bombs against frontline Ukrainian positions, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Ukrainian military source claimed this would “seriously impact” a Russian attempt to advance on the battleground town of Chasiv Yar, in the east of Ukraine.
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The strikes targeted the Kushchyovskaya airbase in Krasnodar Krai, which is in the North Caucasus region in southern Russia, the source said.
The source did not elaborate on what form the “co-ordinated strikes” took.
It was not possible independently to verify the claims.
The source said a number of aircraft – including fighter jets such as the SU-27, SU-34 and SU-35 – are based at the airfield. They are capable of launching munitions fitted with glide bomb technology that pose a huge threat to Ukrainian troops and civilians.
Read more:
Ukrainian soldiers reveal how they were secretly moved ahead of new Russian invasion
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
“The degradation of this airfield and the capability it holds will mean that Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian troops on the front line is significantly reduced,” the source said.
Explaining why Ukraine chose to target the airfield, the source said that it is used to conduct daily strikes on Ukrainian frontline positions, including with glide bombs.
“This airbase and others are used to launch between 100-150 sorties per day, of which a significant number are launching munitions along the frontline positions concentrated around Chasiv Yar,” the source said.
Russia has been deploying glide bombs against Ukrainian positions since early 2023.
“These glide bombs were vital in the seizure of Avdiivka and are currently being used heavily in Chasiv Yar. They allow the Russian aircraft to release their bombs further away from the target so they are at less risk from Ukrainian air defence.”
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