Israel said its infantry and tanks had carried out raids inside the Gaza Strip on Friday, its first statement of a change from an air war to ground operations to root out Hamas rebels a week after their deadly rampage in southern Israel.
After Israel ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip within 24 hours, some inhabitants of Gaza were fleeing their houses on Friday to avoid an Israeli assault. Hamas warned them against going.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, reported that troops supported by tanks had mounted raids to target Palestinian rocket launchers and find out where Hamas captives were being held.
Unable to estimate their numbers, several thousand residents could be seen on roadways leading out of the northern Gaza Strip. Others declared they wouldn't go.
Hamas, which governs the heavily populated Palestinian area, has sworn to fight until the death. The Israeli military reported that a sizable number of Gazans had started to flee southward "to save themselves."
"Death is better than leaving," said Mohammad, 20, standing in the street outside a building reduced to rubble in an Israeli air strike two days ago near the centre of Gaza.
"I was born here, and I will die here, leaving is a stigma."
Mosques broadcast the message, "Hold on to your homes. Hold on to your land".
“We tell the people of northern Gaza and from Gaza City, stay put in your homes, and your places," Eyad Al-Bozom, spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, told a news conference.
Thousands of Palestinians fled for safety towards southern Gaza from the north on Friday, following Israel's warning to leave before an anticipated ground offensive against Hamas in reprisal for the bloodiest attack in Israel's history.
The call to get out came six days after Hamas gunmen burst through the heavily militarised border around the Gaza Strip and killed more than 1,300 people — most of them civilians — in an attack compared to 9/11 in the United States.
Nearly 1,800 Gazans — again most of them civilians and including over 580 children — have lost their lives in waves of missile strikes on the densely populated enclave, the health ministry said.
Hamas 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".
Tensions meanwhile rose across the Middle East and beyond, with protests in support of the Palestinians, while Israel faced the threat of a separate confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In the occupied West Bank, at least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire during protests supporting Gaza, taking the toll there to 44 since Saturday, the health ministry said.
In Gaza, UN officials said the Israeli military, whose troops are massing at the border, had told them the evacuation should be carried out "within the next 24 hours".
It later admitted it would take more time, however, and did not confirm it had set the deadline.
But the United Nations described the immediate movement of some 1.1 million people — nearly half of the 2.4 million in the Gaza Strip — "impossible".
It urgently appealed for the order to be rescinded. Aid agencies have warned mass evacuations would stretch support to the limit, as fuel, food and water dwindled due to an Israeli blockade.
Hospitals are struggling to cope with the dead and wounded from the relentless bombardment, and the health system was already "at a breaking point", the World Health Organisation said.
Ashraf al-Qudra, from the Gaza health ministry, said hospitals were "starting to lose capacity" and medicine was running out.
In Jordan, after a meeting with visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, King Abdullah II called for "humanitarian corridors" to be opened urgently.
Elizabeth El-Nakla, the mother-in-law of Scotland´s First Minister Humza Yousaf, said in a video from Gaza that he posted online that people had nowhere to go.
"One million people no food no water, and still they are bombing them as they leave. Where are we going to put them?" she said.
"This will be my last video. Everybody from Gaza is moving towards where we are," added Nakla, who was visiting relatives in Gaza from Scotland.
"May God help us."
Israel faces a potential second front in the north after the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon said it was "fully prepared" to join Hamas in the war when the time was right.
There has been a cross-border fire in recent days, sparking concern about regional stability and prompting the United States to send additional munitions and its largest aircraft carrier.
US President Joe Biden has warned other regional powers not to get involved. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin told Israel Friday that US support was "iron-clad".
Israel´s arch-foe Iran has long financially and militarily backed Hamas and praised its attack but insists it was not involved.
The Washington Post reported that US and Qatari officials have agreed to prevent Iran from using a $6 billion humanitarian assistance fund, following the Hamas attack.
But an Iranian official said the US "can NOT renege on the agreement."
Israel Friday informed the United Nations that it has warned 1.1 million northern Gaza residents to relocate towards the southern territory in the next 24 hours, evacuating the north of Wadi Gaza.
The warning from Israel was confirmed to AFP by a UN spokesperson, who called for revocation of the order on humanitarian grounds.
The spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said the Israeli military informed the UN about the order, which also applied to all of its own staff and people sheltered in the UN facilities including schools, health centres and clinics.
At least 1,799 Palestinians and more than 1,300 Israelis have lost their lives during Israel-Hamas war.
In addition, at least 583 Palestinian children have lost their lives with at least 6,388 people wounded in Israeli attacks.
Israel's army, too, said it has called for all Gaza City residents to evacuate their homes and head south of the territory "for their safety".
"The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) 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 military said in a statement.
"In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians," it added.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) is sheltering more than 60% of the 423,000 people displaced in recent days in the Gaza Strip.
It was not immediately clear how many people were currently located north of Wadi Gaza.
US ready to send more military aid to Israel
As Israeli forces get ready for a potential invasion of Gaza in response to a catastrophic attack by Hamas, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin stated on Friday that the Pentagon was prepared to send further military assistance to Israel.
Austin claimed that supplies of weapons, air defence capabilities, and other resources were "rapidly flowing" to the United States' closest Middle Eastern partner. Hamas is a Palestinian organisation that controls Gaza, and Israel has pledged to destroy it.
On October 7, Hamas carried out an unprecedented and shocking cross-border strike into southern Israel, prompting Israel to launch its heaviest-ever bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Israel's response, which has already seen thousands of bombs being dropped on Gaza, is anticipated to become more ferocious as it prepares for a potential ground invasion of the confined, highly populated coastal enclave.
Israel is waging what Israeli leaders predict will be a protracted war, and the United States and other Western allies have pledged their support for Israel in this endeavour.
"The USS Gerald R. Ford strike group is now in the region led by the largest aircraft carrier in the world. We've augmented US fighter aircraft squadrons in the Middle East and ... stand fully ready to deploy additional assets if necessary," Austin told reporters in Tel Aviv.
Yoav Gallant, an Israeli, co-spoke with Austin, who warned that "resolve" and not "revenge" was needed at this time.
Risk of economic "spillover" growing each day amid Israel-Hamas war: IMF
According to Kristalina Georgieva, general secretary of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the conflict between Palestine and Israel must be settled "as quickly as possible" since the risk of economic spillover is growing more serious by the day.
“We pray for resolving this conflict as quickly as possible; the longer it goes the more the risk of spillovers grow and where we are as a world, we simply cannot afford more uncertainty and hatred,” Georgieva said in the video interview. “Fast resolution is what would help people and the world.”
When asked if the IMF can start a conversation between Israel and Egypt over the disputed Palestinian area, Georgieva responded that the fund has a duty of neutrality to be able to provide "objective" policy advice on economic problems to all member nations.
“There are institutions that are a better fit to bring countries together on a political level than the fund,” she said.
“The fund is now focussed on carefully monitoring what could be the economic impact of the new eruption of tensions in the Middle East.”
Antony Blinken meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, on Friday in Amman to talk about the aftermath of the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, particularly the effects in the occupied West Bank.
Following meetings with Israeli leaders and those directly impacted by the attack and war, which have claimed more than 1,300 Israeli lives and at least 27 American lives, the secretary is now travelling to Jordan, which forms a significant portion of Israel's eastern border.
Blinken also had a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, who has been in contact with President Joe Biden ever since the crisis started. Over many years, the Jordanian ruler has played a significant role as a mediator in negotiations pertaining to the Middle East.
Blinken and Abdullah II discussed "the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. They also talked about “efforts to secure the release of all hostages and prevent the conflict from widening."
Blinken “underscored that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination and discussed ways to address the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza while Israel conducts legitimate security operations to defend itself from terrorists,” it said.
The Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, is in charge of overseeing some aspects of the West Bank. His Fatah movement is an adversary of Gaza's ruling Hamas.
Israel's call for more than 1 million residents in northern Gaza to leave within 24 hours will be a "tall order," according to John Kirby, the White House's national security spokesman.
"That is a lot of people to move in a very short period of time," Kirby said in an interview on MSNBC. "We understand what they're trying to do and why they're trying to do this — to try to isolate the civilian population from Hamas, which is their real target."
"The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences," Dujarric said.
"The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation."
Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said the UN's reponse to the evacuation call was "shameful."
"For many years, the UN has turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas and its use of the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as a hiding place for its weapons and murder," Erdan said in a note from his office to AFP.
"Now, instead of standing by Israel...it preaches to Israel".
"It is better for the UN to focus now on returning the hostages, condemning Hamas, and supporting Israel´s right to defend itself," he said.
In its bid to fight against the brutalities imposed on Palestine's persecuted population by Israel, Hamas, on Saturday, launched a surprise attack by sweeping into small towns, kibbutzim and a music festival. The action by Hamas left 1,200 Israelis dead, while several are claimed to have been taken hostage.
Israel, meanwhile, has continued with its decades-long offensive against unarmed Palestinians through raining air and artillery strikes on Gaza — a densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people — flattening buildings and martyring more than 1,500 Palestinians.
A Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas situation has been called for Friday.
— Additional input by AFP
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