{"id":10455,"date":"2025-09-09T18:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T18:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/10455\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T18:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T18:29:07","slug":"panic-and-confusion-in-gaza-city-as-israel-orders-palestinians-out-ahead-of-military-operation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/10455\/","title":{"rendered":"Panic and confusion in Gaza City as Israel orders Palestinians out ahead of military operation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palestinians living in the ruins of Gaza City were bombarded with Israeli leaflets on Tuesday ordering them out, after Israel<\/a> said it was about to obliterate the area in an assault to wipe out Hamas<\/a>, causing panic and confusion.<\/p>\n

Residents of the city, the enclave\u2019s biggest urban centre that was home to a million Palestinians<\/a> before the war, have been expecting an onslaught for weeks, since the Israeli government devised a plan designed to deal Hamas<\/a> a fatal blow in what it says are the militant group\u2019s last strongholds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say to the residents of Gaza<\/a>, take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned \u2013 get out of there!\u201d Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military<\/a> airdropped leaflets with evacuation orders onto residents standing amid the rubble of Gaza City, where it has bombed residential towers to the ground in the past few days.<\/p>\n

The evacuation orders rattled the city\u2019s residents, who say there is no safe place to go to escape bombardment and a humanitarian crisis. Some said they would have no choice but to leave for the south, but many said they would stay and there were no immediate signs of a mass exodus.<\/p>\n

Anxiety was spreading through a tent area in Gaza City housing displaced cancer patients.<\/p>\n

Displacement is a profound issue for Palestinians, who fear that Mr Netanyahu and his far-right allies in government want a repeat of the \u201cNakba\u201d, or \u201ccatastrophe\u201d, when hundreds of thousands of people fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

Israel has been widely accused of genocide, including by the world\u2019s biggest group of genocide scholars, over its nearly two-year campaign in the Palestinian enclave that has killed more than 64,000 people, according to local authorities.<\/p>\n

Israel rejects the accusation, citing its right to self-defence following the October 7th, 2023 attack by Hamas militants that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.<\/p>\n

The health authorities in Gaza announced they would not evacuate Gaza City\u2019s two main operational hospitals, adding that doctors would not leave patients unattended.<\/p>\n

Most Gazans have already been displaced several times since the war started, much of the territory lies in ruins and a hunger crisis has grown far worse in recent months.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military has instructed residents of Gaza City to move to a designated \u201chumanitarian zone\u201d in the already overcrowded Al-Mawasi area along the coast in the south, where thousands of Palestinians have already been sheltering in tents. Israel has also regularly bombed the south.<\/p>\n

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Monday that the military would unleash a \u201cmighty hurricane\u201d that would destroy Gaza if Hamas did not free the last hostages it holds and surrender.<\/p>\n

Israel has called up tens of thousands of reservists for a ground operation.<\/p>\n

Israeli forces have been operating on Gaza City\u2019s outskirts since last month, and the military said it was in control of 40 per cent of the city already.<\/p>\n

Launching the new Israeli assault could complicate ceasefire efforts to end the nearly two-year war. <\/p>\n

International critics say Israel\u2019s Gaza plan, which includes demilitarising the whole strip as Israel takes security control, could worsen the humanitarian plight of the 2.2 million Palestinians who live there.<\/p>\n

The Gaza City assault plan has provoked concern inside Israel, where public support for the war has wavered. Israel\u2019s military leadership has warned Mr Netanyahu against expanding the war, according to Israeli officials. Families of Israeli hostages and their supporters fear the attack could endanger the captives.<\/p>\n

Hamas says it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established, and will not free all hostages without an agreement ending the war. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palestinians living in the ruins of Gaza City were bombarded with Israeli leaflets on Tuesday ordering them out,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10748,3409,4502,42,3410,4267,3411,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-10455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-israel-defence-forces","tag-israel-hamas-conflict","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}