(Reuters) – “Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families,” Israel’s military told more than 1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip’s largest city.
It gave them 24 hours as it amasses tanks ahead of an expected ground invasion. In Gaza at Friday prayers, preachers called on people not to leave their homes.
The United Nations said evacuating everyone was impossible with power supplies cut and food and water running short after a week of retaliatory air strikes following the Hamas attack on Israeli border areas on Saturday.
Conflict
* “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The World Health Organization said local health authorities told them it was impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients. “So moving those people is a death sentence,” said WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman on Friday that he “rejects the forced displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza, WAFA reported.
* U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Israeli government showed him photographs and videos of Hamas atrocities. Blinken said they showed a baby “riddled with bullets”, soldiers beheaded and young people burned in their cars. “It’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,” he said.
* The Hamas attack on Saturday killed more than 1,300 Israelis. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory attacks.
* Protests were taking place in the Middle East and beyond in support of Palestinians. Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem was a focus of attention. Jewish communities in France and elsewhere were also planning rallies in solidarity with Israel.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin said an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza would result in a level of civilian casualties that would be “absolutely unacceptable”.
* Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
* Egypt said it was directing international aid flights for Gaza to an airport in Sinai near the Gaza border.
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.
* An Israeli family fears for an ailing grandmother driven off by Hamas gunmen.
* When Israel called up its reservists and declared war this week, the response was swift and overwhelming.
International
* The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over potential war crimes carried out by Hamas in Israel and Israelis in the Gaza Strip, even though Israel is not a member state, the ICC’s top prosecutor told Reuters.
“One doesn’t need to be the prosecutor of the ICC. Any human being’s heart must be chilled and frozen and heartbroken at seeing the pictures that are coming out of Israel and Palestine these last few days,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said.
* Iran’s foreign minister has reportedly met the head of Hezbollah.
* The United Nations’ human rights office said: “We are calling for a global call, an unequivocal call from every member state in the international community, particularly those with influence, to insist upon full respect for international humanitarian law.”
* Republican infighting in the U.S. House of Representatives has left the chamber unable to act to support Israel’s war and pass government spending bills before funding runs out.
* Israel, the White House and some rival Republican presidential candidates criticized former U.S. President Donald Trump after he described Hezbollah as “smart” and said Netanyahu “was not prepared” for the attack.
* U.S. colleges have become flashpoints for protests on both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict and authorities around the world are bracing for more protests on Friday and into the weekend.
* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told the German chancellor that a sovereign Palestinian state should be established for a lasting solution to the conflict, the Turkish presidency said.
* China’s top diplomat and foreign minister Wang Yi said the Palestinian issue is the core of the Middle East conflict, and that crux of the matter was that “justice” had been denied to the Palestinian people.
Insights
* An Israeli invasion of Gaza will face an enemy that has built a formidable armoury and dug a vast tunnel network to evade attackers.
* A factbox on the Gaza Strip, devastated by conflict and economic blockade.
* The war falls under a complex international system of justice that has emerged since World War Two.
* The conflict hinges on statehood, land, Jerusalem and refugees, pitting Israeli demands for security against Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own.
* “He is elusive. He is the man in the shadows.” The secretive Hamas mastermind behind the assault: Mohammed Deif.
* The Israel-Hamas war upends Biden’s two-pronged Mideast strategy: brokering Israeli-Saudi detente and containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
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.
* What are global firms with a presence in Israel doing after the Hamas attack?
