Mosques urged residents of the Gaza Strip not to leave their homes on Friday after the Israeli army told all civilians, more than 1 million people, to move south ahead of an expected ground invasion , with the risk of serious losses.
Any incursion could be crucial in the fight between the Israeli army and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which on Saturday launched the bloodiest attack on the country since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Israel has already launched its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza, mobilized 300,000 reservists and built tanks near the border.
Threats of a land invasion conjured images of the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe that refers to the 1948 war to create Israel that led to mass dispossession.
Gaza analyst Talal Okal described the Israeli relocation order as an “attempt to push the Palestinian people from Gaza into the Nakba”.
“As they did in 1948 when they expelled people from historic Palestine by throwing barrels of explosives at their heads, today Israel is repeating the same before the eyes of the world and live cameras,” Okal told Reuters.
Hamas militants killed more than 1,300 Israelis in their attack on Saturday. According to local authorities, Israeli airstrikes in response have so far killed more than 1,400 people in Gaza.
With a ground invasion appearing imminent, Israel is telling Gaza civilians to leave, and Hamas is telling them to shut up.
“Civilians of Gaza City, move south for your safety and that of your families and distance yourself from the Hamas terrorists who use you as human shields,” the military said.
“Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City in tunnels under homes and inside buildings inhabited by innocent Gaza civilians.”
Source: Terra
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