Thousands Of Palestinians Flee North Gaza After Israel’s Evacuation Warning

Gaza is already one of the world’s most densely populated pieces of land, with more than 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.

Thousands of Palestinians have started fleeing from Northern Gaza to Southern Gaza for refuge after Israel issued a warning for them to evacuate before an expected ground offensive against Hamas in the ongoing war. 

It had been reported that Israel’s military warned 1.1 million people living in Northern Gaza to evacuate their homes as Israel is set to ramp up its retaliatory offensive against Hamas following the group’s sudden terror attacks last Saturday.

Gaza is already one of the world’s most densely populated pieces of land, with more than 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.

The Israeli’s evacuation warning came after Hamas gunmen burst through the heavily militarised border around the Gaza Strip and killed over 1,300 people in neighbouring Israeli settlements – most of them civilians.

The Israeli-Palestinian war has claimed the lives of at least 1,800 people in Gaza – most of them civilians, including more than 580 children who were killed in waves of missile strikes on Gaza, according to the health ministry.

The United Nations has described the current immediate movement of some 1.1 million people which is nearly half of the 2.4 million in the Gaza Strip to the South as “impossible.”

Hamas, proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and Europe, took an estimated 150 Israeli, foreign and dual-national hostages back to Gaza during its initial attack, according to Israel.

The militant group on Friday said 13 of them had been killed in Israeli air strikes. It has previously said four hostages died in bombardments, complicating any Israeli ground offensive.

Germany Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, visiting Jerusalem on Friday, said Hamas was using residents as a “shield.”