“We sat in the yard from 8am to 5pm under the sun with no water or food.”
Sixteen-year-old Mohammed* was separated from his mother by Israeli forces as his family tried to flee northern Gaza.
Mohammed’s mother was taken to a “sandy pit” with other women and children and sat in the heat for hours before the group were released and told to move south. She took this video as she waited.
Mohammed and his mother are among tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to flee northern Gaza in the past few weeks, as Israel’s military assault against Hamas has intensified.
Using geolocated videos, an interview with a teenage boy held in a school by Israeli forces and evacuation orders issued by the military, Sky News has investigated the conditions that some civilians have faced while leaving.
Our analysis of the evacuation orders reveals that over the course of five days in mid-October, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of 90% of the North Gaza governorate – an area half the size of Manchester. The UN says within two weeks in October alone, 60,000 people were displaced from North Gaza.
It comes as experts told Sky News Israel has a responsibility as the occupying power to look after civilians, “especially those civilians it may move for military reasons”.
In response to our report, the IDF said it makes “every effort to prevent harm to uninvolved civilians” and takes “additional measures” alongside evacuation maps to move civilians to safer areas.
It said: “Extensive efforts are being made to identify each individual examined and to detain only those who are terror operatives or suspected of being involved in terrorist activities”. It added that those who are not involved are released “as soon as possible” and IDF protocols are to “treat detainees with dignity”.
Videos show mass evacuations
Northern Gaza has become the focus of Israel’s military efforts in the strip. It says it aims to destroy Hamas who they say are regrouping in the north.
Sky News geolocated 17 videos and images taken by civilians, soldiers and shared by the IDF showing mass evacuations and detentions in northern Gaza posted online in the past three weeks.
The footage below shows hundreds of civilians fleeing on foot. Taken from an Israeli armoured vehicle, women and children are seeing carrying their belongings. It offers a glimpse into the scale of the evacuations taking place in the north.
We mapped the locations of these videos to an area just north of the Indonesian Hospital. The IDF has also published multiple videos online in the past two weeks showing its efforts to help civilians leave.
But other footage, geolocated to a similar area, captures a different part of the IDFs operation.
One video, posted online on 23 October, shows at least 23 Palestinian men barefoot, blindfolded, dressed in white suits and led away by Israeli soldiers.
The IDF had said in the days previously, that its forces had been operating against “terrorists” in the area. But the exact circumstances of this video are unclear.
Defence and security analyst Professor Michael Clarke says that while it’s not “unreasonable” to separate people for interrogation in a counter-terrorist operation, there are conditions.
He said: “They have to be interrogated properly. They can’t be held indefinitely. They have to have some form of representation and evidence has to be produced. Simply taking all the men away and locking them up is strictly against the laws of war and the Geneva Convention.”
In response, the IDF said recently its forces have been operating in Jabalia in northern Gaza against “terrorist infrastructure” and Hamas militants and has detained and questioned “individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities”.
It added that “relevant suspects are transferred for continued detention and investigation in Israel” and those who are not involved are released, adding that individuals detained are treated “in accordance with international law”.
Teenager separated from family
Mohammed is among Palestinians who have been separated from their family during evacuation. With his parents, the family started their journey out of northern Gaza on 22 October after an Israeli evacuation order for Beit Lahia was issued that morning.
Mohammed said they walked from a house they were staying at near the Kamal Adwan Hospital and headed towards the Indonesian Hospital. His mother said casualties were “flooding” in and out of the hospital and described it as “the most terrifying scene ever”.
Mohammed said: “The soldiers were laughing at us and hurling insults as we walked among them… When we arrived at the Indonesian hospital, the solders separated the men from the women and put them in a school and made the women continue walking along Salah al Din Road.
“I’m 16 years old, I’m still young. I continued walking with my mother, but the soldier ordered me in Arabic to go to the school.
“My mother told me, ‘don’t answer him and keep walking with me. I can’t leave you alone’. My father went, but I was still walking with my mother. But then the soldier raised his weapon at me and said to me, ‘I told you to go the school’.”
Mohammed and his father were taken to the al Kuwait School next to the hospital where they were ordered to sit outside for nine hours. His mother, separated from her son, was told to continue walking towards the Salah al Din Road.
He said: “The army was summoning 10 people then 10 more for examination for security… they put them in white uniforms blindfolded and walked barefoot the soldiers beat them if they fell.”
With a group of women and children, Mohammed’s mother was taken to a sandy area just off the Salah al Din Road where they sat in the sun for hours before eventually being released and walking to Gaza City. Three of the videos we geolocated were taken by Mohammed’s mother, 800m south of the Indonesian Hospital.
She told Sky News: “I filmed everything. I don’t know why I did it, I just wanted to show my son and husband what we were experiencing when I was reunited with them.”
Mohammed and his father were released separately that evening. He says he walked for five hours with no clothes to get to Gaza City, where he found his parents. They are unsure when or if they will be able to return safely to the north.
In response, the IDF said it addresses and examines events that deviated from IDF values through “command and disciplinary measures”. It said requested details necessary to examine the claim “were not provided” and therefore are unable to further review them.
Journey to Mawasi over 16km
The Israeli military has urged civilians to go to al Mawasi – a strip of land on the coast in southern Gaza which it deems a “humanitarian zone”. The United Nations humanitarian agency has said Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is increasingly concentrated in al Mawasi.
The military has frequently posted evacuation maps online – telling civilians which zones to leave and where they should go.
These maps are not the only form of evacuation notices issued by the IDF, who also use other methods like leaflets. But the Israeli military says they are created to minimise civilian casualties and Gazans are often told to refer to them.
Since the start of October, our analysis found the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson has posted three evacuation maps for northern Gaza – on 7, 8 and 12 October.
Two of the maps, posted on 7 and 8 October, show the same area, covering the majority of North Gaza governorate. The third map, posted on 12 October, covers the neighbourhood of Jabalia. Sky News compared these maps with UN maps of Gaza’s official administrative boundaries.
It is possible that the IDF has issued more evacuation orders in the period we analysed using maps and other methods which were not posted online. Our analysis is based on the information they have posted on their social media accounts.
Our analysis found that the areas evacuated between 7 and 12 October encompass 90% of the North Gaza governorate. The UN told Sky News that an estimated 90,000 people remain in the region.
Of the three maps we found, only one of them details the time period in which civilians were safe to travel on the given route. The other two do not provide a length of the evacuation order or an expiry date.
In response, the IDF said since the start of the war over two million evacuation notifications have been distributed, more than 12 million flyers have been dropped, over 100,000 phone calls made and over 800,000 voice messages sent for evacuations.
Measuring the distance between our geolocated videos of the evacuations and the Mawasi zone, we found civilians would have to walk at least 16km to get there.
We also found that the three hospitals that have recently been operational in northern Gaza – Kamal Adwan Hospital, Indonesian Hospital and al Awda Hospital, were included on two of the three evacuation maps we found.
The IDF expanded the area of the al Mawasi zone in October but has been criticised for its lack of support for civilians who have moved there.
Professor Clarke said: “If the Israelis are moving these people out, that can be permissible if they can provide evidence that they are providing for these people at the other end of their journey.
“Now, so far in the evacuations that we’ve seen in the last 12 months in Gaza, that has not been the case. The best the Israelis have managed is to allow the UN and relief organisations to do something. But the fact is it’s their responsibility, not the UN responsibility. It’s their responsibility as the occupying power to look after civilians, particularly civilians it may move for military reasons.”
The IDF said as part of its efforts in the humanitarian zone of al Mawasi, “proactive calls” were made for civilians to evacuate “to an area into which humanitarian aid was transported, including food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment, which included the provision of 40,000 tents purchased by the State of Israel”.
It added that due to recent operations in the Jabalia area, “prior notifications indicated the need for evacuation… which also includes several hospitals”. It said officials from the Palestinian healthcare system and international community requested IDF assistance in safely evacuating the hospitals in the area.
The military said “no specific time frame was set for the evacuation of the hospitals, and evacuations have been ongoing”.
There have also been significant changes to infrastructure in northern Gaza. Satellite imagery taken 10 days apart shows the disappearance of two large displacement camps and tents set up in schools.
Over 50 tents in a civilian displacement camp less than 500m north of the Indonesian Hospital is visible in imagery taken on 14 October but is not visible in an image taken on 24 October.
Another camp with over 100 tents less than 2km south is also not visible in the latest imagery of the area.
It’s unclear whether the camp was cleared by the military or civilians. The IDF facilitated evacuations in the area near the Indonesian Hospital within the 10-day period when the images were taken.
It’s not yet clear how long the Israeli offensive in the north will continue for. Aid organisations and members of the international community like the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), have raised concerns about the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, citing limited humanitarian aid getting through.
*Mohammed’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
Additional reporting by Celine Alkhaldi, Middle East producer, Michelle Inez Simon, visual investigations producer, Sam Doak, OSINT producer and Adam Parker, OSINT editor.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Ireland’s prime minister has announced the planned date for a general election to be held this month.
Taoiseach Simon Harris said he hopes the election will take place on 29 November, formally kicking off a truncated campaign which will last mere weeks.
He will travel to Aras an Uachtarain on Friday, the official residence of the Irish president, to seek the dissolution of Ireland’s Dail parliament.
Speaking to RTE News on Wednesday, Mr Harris said: “As I would have discussed with the other coalition leaders, it’s my hope that we will have polling day on this country on November 29.”
He added: “I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead and asking the people of Ireland for a mandate.”
There’s a clear reason why this election has been called
So the worst kept secret in Irish politics is finally out, and the people look set to head to the ballot boxes on 29 November.
The taoiseach employs several lofty explanations for why he has decided upon an early election, but it’s hard to look beyond political expediency.
The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll – the lowest level of support since 2019.
Its leader Mary Lou McDonald – once seen as Ireland’s first female taoiseach in waiting – has been battling a serious decline in support for a year, and is bogged down in firefighting a damaging series of internal party scandals, north and south of the border.
After refusing to be drawn on the election date for weeks, Mr Harris made the announcement less than an hour after his coalition partner-turned-campaign rival Micheal Martin revealed that the election would be called on Friday.
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Mr Harris could have waited until March when the coalition’s five-year term comes to an end to go to the polls, but he has been paving the way for an election in recent weeks, announcing 10.5bn euros (£8.75bn) in tax cuts and spending increases last month.
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The election will bring to an end the historic coalition that brought together Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, who had been rivals dating back to the civil war.
It saw Mr Martin, the Fianna Fail leader, taking the taoiseach role for the first half of the lifetime of the government, later replaced by then-Fine Gael leader Mr Varadkar.
The last election was seen as a monumentally successful performance for Sinn Fein, which had the highest percentage of first-preference votes, but the party has struggled in more recent local and European elections.
A man described by not one but two of his closest former aides as a fascist will become the most powerful man in the world when he takes office. How worried should we be?
Very, say another dozen White House staffers who served under Donald Trump and watched him in action for his first four years in power.
In a second term, they are warning that those who once tried to prevent him from acting on his worst impulses will no longer be there to rein him in.
“The grown ups”, as they were called in Mr Trump’s first administration, will have gone, replaced by people more aligned with his agenda and pushing their own.
What is that agenda and what is to come? That is harder to say. We have learned not to take Donald J Trump literally – his empty promises, lies, and false threats come thick and fast.
The first time round, many of his promises came to nothing; to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it, to bring peace to the Middle East, to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, and Iran’s too.
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What are ‘Trumponomics’?
But we can say what is likely; trade wars with China, Mexico, and Canada seem probable.
The extent of the tariffs Mr Trump imposes are harder to predict but the impact on the global economy will most likely be considerable.
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He could rip up more treaties the US has signed, including climate commitments made by his predecessors.
Mr Trump is likely to undo much of the Biden administration’s work to reverse climate change and the negative impact on the planet may be substantial.
And he is likely to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war largely on Moscow’s terms if his words and those of his team are anything to go by.
His running mate JD Vance says Russia will keep the land it has taken and receive a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality. Putin could not have hoped for more.
Those hoping for an end to the war in Gaza may be disappointed too.
He is likely to give the Israelis plenty of latitude when it comes to the conflict. And there are fears he would not restrain Israel in any future confrontations with Iran unlike the Biden administration, with all the risks of a wider Middle Eastern war that might ensue.
NATO’s uncertain future
Trump’s impact on NATO is harder to predict. His team has floated various plans for the alliance. They all arguably weaken America’s support for it.
Without America’s cast-iron guarantee, will other countries seek their own security arrangements? It seems likely.
One of the great pillars of the post-world war order will have been weakened. But Mr Trump in his first term showed contempt for all its multi-lateral, multinational organisations.
America swings through cycles of isolationism, retreating from the world, then having to re-engage at huge cost to protect its interests.
Mr Trump may prove unwilling to learn the lessons of that history.
Those who regard America, for all its faults, as a positive influence in the world, an example to follow, will be most worried and disheartened.
A demagogic populist, regarded as a fascist by some of those who know him best and who openly admires authoritarians and dictators, will be taking up the reins of power again in the world’s most powerful democracy.
All of that will only embolden other strongmen the world over and damage, perhaps beyond repair, the democracy that Americans have long believed stands as an example for all the world to follow.
The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll – the lowest level of support since 2019.
Its leader Mary Lou McDonald – once seen as Ireland’s first female taoiseach in waiting – has been battling a serious decline in support for a year, and is bogged down in firefighting a damaging series of internal party scandals, north and south of the border.
Why wait until next March for an election? Going now ensures the voters will be getting the first benefits of the recent bumper €10.5bn (£9bn) giveaway budget (“buying votes” according to the opposition) as the polling cards arrive.
Going the parliamentary distance risks the current government buoyancy being sunk by events. A week is a long time in politics, four months an eternity. Why take the risk?
This election will largely be fought on the same issues as 2020. Four years of this coalition government has done nothing to convince voters that Ireland’s chronic housing problem is healing. Homelessness has hit a record high of 14,500.
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The health system still creaks and groans under pressure, despite huge investment.
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Immigration may be a new factor; concerns over a surge in asylum-seekers arriving in Ireland mean the topic could be a key issue for the first time in an election here.
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A chunky budget surplus, full employment, tax cuts and benefit hikes – what Sir Keir Starmer wouldn’t give to be in Simon Harris’s shoes.
But for many citizens, Ireland is a rich country that often feels like a poor country. So the saying goes, at least.
Success for the government parties in this election will rely on reminding the voters of the first part of that truism and glossing over the latter part.
Extra pre-Christmas cash for punters, a hamstrung opposition and that new leader bounce all help greatly – Mr Harris kicks off this campaign in a strong position to be returned as Ireland’s prime minister.