Israeli military ready for a ‘co-ordinated offensive’ in Gaza Strip

EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / TOPSHOT - A Palestinian woman covers sleeping children with a blanket as they take refuge in a United nations school, in the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern of Gaza Strip on October 14, 2023, as fighting between Israel and the Hamas movement continues for the eighth consecutive day in the Gaza Strip enclave. Palestinians sought refuge on October 14, 2023, after Israel warned them to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip before an expected ground offensive against Hamas, one week after the deadliest attack in Israel's history. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP) (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images)

The Israeli military said it has prepared a “co-ordinated” offensive in the Gaza Strip involving air, ground and naval forces.

In a statement on its website on Saturday night, the army said it is “preparing to implement a wide range of offensive operative plans”.

Israel has ordered roughly half of Gaza’s population to evacuate their homes ahead of an expected ground offensive in response to last week’s cross-border Hamas attack.

Smoke plumes rising above buildings during an Israeli strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 14, 2023. Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel on October 7 which killed at least 1300 people, sparking a retaliatory bombing campaign that has killed more than 1900 in the Gaza Strip ahead of a potential Israeli ground invasion of the territory. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP) (Photo by SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images)

It is not clear when the offensive will begin.

Palestinians are struggling to flee from areas of Gaza targeted by the Israeli military while grappling with a water and medical supplies shortage ahead of the expected land offensive.

Israel renewed calls on social media and in leaflets dropped from the air for Gaza residents to move south, while Hamas urged people to stay in their homes.

The UN and aid groups have said such a rapid exodus would cause untold human suffering, especially for hospital patients, older adults and others unable to relocate.

The evacuation directive covers an area of 1.1 million residents, or about half the territory’s population.

The Israeli military said “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians had already heeded the warning and headed south. It said Palestinians could travel within Gaza without being harmed along two main routes from 10am to 4pm local time (8am to 2pm) BST.

A week after Hamas’ attack, Israel is still working to assess the casualties.

With special rabbinic approval, workers at a military base in central Israel continued with the task of identifying the bodies of the Israelis and foreign nationals who were killed, most of them civilians. Work is normally halted on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath.

It is not clear how many Palestinians remained in north Gaza by Saturday afternoon, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

She said: “What we know is that hundreds of thousands of people have fled. And that 1 million people have been displaced in total in one week,” she said.

Meanwhile, an estimated 35,000 people have crammed into the grounds of Gaza City’s main hospital, seeking refuge ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive, medical officials said.

Mohammad Abu Selim, general director of Shifa Hospital, confirmed that massive crowds had thronged the building and the courtyard outside.

Shifa is the largest hospital in the entire Gaza Strip.

Health ministry official Dr Medhat Abbas said: “People think this is the only safe space after their homes were destroyed and they were forced to flee.

“Gaza City is a frightening scene of devastation.”

Families in cars, trucks and donkey carts packed with possessions crowded a main road heading away from Gaza City as Israeli air strikes continued to hammer the 25-mile long territory, where basic necessities like food, fuel and drinking water were running low because of a complete Israeli siege.

Water has stopped coming out of taps across the territory.

Near the coast, the only tap water is contaminated with Mediterranean Sea water because of the lack of sanitation facilities. Mohammed Ibrahim, 28, said his neighbours in Gaza City have taken to drinking the salt water.

The Israeli military’s evacuation would force the territory’s entire population to cram into the southern half of the Gaza Strip as Israel continues strikes across the territory, including in the south.

The UN refugee agency for Palestinians expressed concern for those who could not leave, “particularly pregnant women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities”, saying they must be protected.

The agency also called for Israel to not target civilians, hospitals, schools, clinics and UN locations.

Al-Shifa hospital was receiving hundreds of wounded every hour and had used up 95% of its medical supplies, hospital director Mohammad Abu Selim said. Water is scarce and the fuel powering its generators is dwindling.

“The situation inside the hospital is miserable in every sense of the word,” he said. “The operating rooms don’t stop.”

Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said the evacuation was aimed at keeping civilians safe and preventing Hamas from using them as human shields. He urged people in the targeted areas to leave immediately and to return “only when we tell them that it is safe to do so”.

He added: “The Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not our enemies. We don’t assess them as such, and we don’t target them as such.

“We are trying to do the right thing.”

Thousands of people crammed into a UN-run school-turned-shelter in Deir al-Balah, a farming town south of the evacuation zone. Many slept outside on the ground without mattresses, or in chairs pulled from classrooms.

The Israeli military said its troops conducted temporary raids into Gaza on Friday to battle militants and hunted for traces of some 150 people – including men, women and children – who were abducted during Hamas’ October 7 assault on southern Israel.

The Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that more than 2,200 people have been killed in the territory, including 724 children and 458 women.

The Hamas communications office said that Israel has “completely demolished” more than 7,000 housing units so far.

Hamas’ surprise attack killed more than 1,300 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, and roughly 1,500 Hamas militants died during the fighting, the Israeli government said.

Israel’s raids into Gaza on Friday were the first acknowledgment that Israeli troops had entered the territory since the military began its round-the-clock bombardment in retaliation for the Hamas massacre.

Palestinian militants have fired more than 5,500 rockets into Israel since the fighting erupted, the Israeli military said.

Israel has also called up some 360,000 military reserves and massed troops and tanks along the border with Gaza. A ground assault in densely populated Gaza would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.