Israel's military on Friday called for all civilians of Gaza City, more than 1 million people, to relocate south within 24 hours, as it amassed tanks nearby ahead of an expected ground invasion after a devastating attack by Hamas.
"Now is a time for war," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday as Israeli warplanes continued pounding Gaza in retaliation for the weekend attacks by Hamas that killed more than 1,300 Israelis, mostly civilians.
The Israeli military said it would operate "significantly" in Gaza City in the coming days and civilians should only return when advised. More than 1,500 Palestinians have already been killed in retaliatory attacks.
Washington urged it to protect civilians and the Red Cross warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave.
The United Nations World Food Programme warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low in Gaza after Israel imposed a total blockade.
Moving severely ill people in Gaza amounts to 'death sentence': WHO
The World Health Organization said on Friday local health authorities in Gaza had informed it that it was impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients from northern Gaza after Israel's military called for civilians to relocate south within 24 hours, reports Reuters.
"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."
Hundreds of Jordanians are marching towards the border with Israel in a show of support for Palestinians, local media have reported.
According to Al Jazeera, Jordan's King Abdullah II on Wednesday said that peace without a Palestinian state would not be possible after pro-Palestine protests were held in the capital, Amman.
Egyptian official says troops sent to border with Gaza
Egypt has beefed up security along the borders with Gaza by deploying thousands of security forces, The Associated Press has reported citing an unnamed senior Egyptian security official.
The official added that Egypt took "unprecedented measures" to prevent a breach to its borders with Gaza and Israel's potential ground invasion of the territory will be a "grave mistake", reports Al Jazeera.
Palestinians will not leave homeland again, says Hamas official
The head of Hamas's political and international relations bureau has told Al Jazeera that Palestinians in Gaza would not leave their homeland even as Israel called for over one million civilians to evacuate the northern part of the enclave.
"We have two options: To defeat this occupation or to die in our homes," Basem Naim said.
"We are not going to leave. We are not ready to repeat the Nakba again," he said, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians when Israel was formed in 1948.
Naim said the attack on Saturday was a result of the "suffocating siege" that Gaza endured for 17 years.
"We were dying in silence. We have tried to get out of this open-air prison, we have tried to raise our voices at the level of the international community … what we are doing is an act of defence, we are defending our existence.
"We are eager to live in freedom and dignity, we have to get rid of this occupation. This is the root of all evil in the region."
Here's the full statement from the Israeli military on Gaza City evacuation
The following is the statement that the Israeli military has sent to civilians in Gaza City:
"The IDF [Israeli army] calls for the evacuation of all civilians of Gaza City from their homes southwards for their own safety and protection and move to the area south of the Wadi Gaza, as shown on the map."
"The Hamas terrorist organisation waged a war against the State of Israel and Gaza City is an area where military operations take place. This evacuation is for your own safety."
"You will be able to return to Gaza City only when another announcement permitting it is made. Do not approach the area of the security fence with the State of Israel."
"Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent Gazan civilians."
"Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields."
"In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians."
Push to move Palestinians in Gaza is mass displacement: HRW advocate
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, has warned that Israel's call for 1.1 million Palestinian to leave northern Gaza would constitute mass displacement not seen in decades, reports Al-Jazeera.
"This would amount to displacing 1 million+ Palestinians – displacement on a scale we have not seen since the Nakba," Shakir said in a social media post, referring to the forced displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians around the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
"The international community must act to prevent a calamity. History will not be kind to those who remain silent."
Hamas: Warning to leave northern Gaza 'fake propaganda'
A Hamas official says that the UN statement warning that Israel has told people in northern Gaza to leave to the south of the enclave is "fake propaganda", and has urged Palestinians in Gaza not to fall for it, Reuters reports.
UN says Israeli military warns 1.1 million Gazans to relocate south in 24 hours
Israel's military informed the United Nations early on Friday that the 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave's south within the next 24 hours, a UN spokesman said, in what Palestinians fear could be a precursor to a planned Israeli ground offensive.
The Israeli military did not immediately provide comment on the warning, which came as Israel amassed tanks near the Gaza border and pounded the Palestinian enclave with air strikes following a deadly Hamas attack in Israel.
Displaced Palestinians
More than 423,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations said, following heavy Israeli bombardments in retaliation for Hamas's attacks.
As of late Thursday, the number of displaced in Gaza rose by 84,444 people to reach 423,378, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement sent on Friday.
Human Rights Watch says Israel used white phosphorus in Gaza, Lebanon
Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the use of such weapons puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injury.
Asked for comment on the allegations, Israel's military said it was "currently not aware of the use of weapons containing white phosphorus in Gaza." It did not provide comment on the rights watchdog's allegations of their use in Lebanon.
UN calls for $294 mn for 'urgent needs' in Gaza, occupied West Bank
The United Nations on Thursday issued an emergency appeal for $294 million to address "the most urgent needs" in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, reports AFP.
The funds would be used to help more than 1.2 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, stressing that aid groups do not have "the resources required to adequately respond to the full range of needs of vulnerable Palestinians."
'Now is the time for war,' says Israel's military chief
Israel's military chief said, "Now is the time for war," as his country amassed tanks near the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned ground invasion to annihilate the Palestinian Hamas group that rules the enclave.
Israel has vowed to retaliate for the attack, the deadliest by Palestinian fighters in Israeli history.
Hamas calls for Friday protests in East Jerusalem, West Bank
Gaza's ruling Hamas called on Palestinians to rise up on Friday in protest at Israel's bombardment of the enclave, urging Palestinians to march to East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque and clash with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank, reports Reuters.
Israel has been pounding Gaza with air strikes and artillery fire in retaliation for a Hamas rampage in Israel this week that has killed at least 1,300 people, the deadliest attack on civilians in Israeli history. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been killed.
To Read More on Israel-Hamas War
CONFLICT
* US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims the Israeli government showed him photographs and videos of Hamas atrocities, including of a baby riddled with bullets, soldiers beheaded and young people burned. "It's simply depravity in the worst imaginable way. It almost defies comprehension."
* Israel's public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300. Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza; Israel says it has identified 97 of them.
* Gaza authorities said more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded. Ten Palestinian medics were among the dead.
* European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen and European Parliament president Roberta Metsola will visit Israel on Friday.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned violence against civilians. "We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law," Wafa news agency Wafa quoted him as saying.
* Egypt said it was directing international aid flights for Gaza to an airport in Sinai near the Gaza border. Egypt signalled that any exodus of Gazans across its border would be unacceptable.
* The Palestinian prime minister said he was working with Egypt to open corridors to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and to put an immediate end to what he called "crimes committed by the Israeli army and settlers."
* Israel's El Al Airlines said it would operate flights this Saturday from the United Sts and Asia to bring back reservists, breaking a 40-year policy of not flying on the Jewish Sabbath.
HUMAN IMPACT
* Israeli air strikes have made major cemeteries in Gaza dangerous to reach so mourning families are burying their dead in informal graveyards dug in empty lots. "As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk," said the ICRC's regional director.
* An Israeli family fears for an ailing grandmother driven off by Hamas gunmen. "She has heart issues. She watched her husband die right in front of her. And right after they got her on (a) motorcycle and she had to hold the terrorist who just murdered her husband," a family member said.
* When Israel called up its reservists and declared war this week, the response was swift and overwhelming."This is different, this is unprecedented, the rules have changed," said one.
MARKETS AND BUSINESS
* Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said the conflict added to already high uncertainty over the global economic outlook, which has made it difficult for the central bank to navigate monetary policy.
* Israel's parliamentary finance committee approved a plan to provide a state guarantee of $6 billion to cover insurance against war risks to Israeli airlines.
* Airlines wrestled with the safety risk of evacuation operations, Carriers including Dutch KLM cancelled flights while sister airline Air France mounted a special relief flight chartered by the French foreign ministry.
The US State Department will begin offering charter flights to Europe to help Americans leave Israel if they want starting Friday.
*World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said she hoped the Israel-Hamas conflict could be ended quickly, warning it would have a "really big impact" on already weak global trade flows if it widened throughout the region.
