Photos show Israel's military mobilization along Gaza's border as deadline for Palestinians to evacuate expires
Katie Hawkinson
- An Israeli order for more than one million people in northern Gaza to evacuate has expired.
- The UN said the evacuation order could have "devastating humanitarian consequences."
On Friday, Israel ordered the entire population of northern Gaza — more than one million people — to evacuate the region in just 24 hours.
Once that evacuation order expired Saturday morning, Israel extended it another six hours. That deadline has also now expired.
Israel designated an evacuation route to allow residents of northern Gaza to flee safely. Israel, however, then attacked that route on Saturday in an airstrike, Insider reported. The attack killed at least a dozen civilians, including women and children as young as two years old. The Israel Defense Forces said it was investigating the incident.
The Israeli air campaign on Gaza has so far killed at least 2,215 people, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
In the week since the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched surprise attacks on southern Israel that killed at least 1,300 people, many of them civilians, the IDF has amassed a large ground force along Gaza's southern border.
Here's what that force looks like.
A fleet of Israeli armored vehicles on Israel's southern border with Gaza
Israeli officials told residents they must flee by Saturday at 4 p.m. local time if they wanted to stay safe, urging them to defy Hamas' order to remain in northern Gaza. Gaza is bracing for a ground invasion now that the deadline has passed.
Israeli soldiers on the southern border with Gaza
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN, said the evacuation couldn't occur "without devastating humanitarian consequences," Insider reported. The order "could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation," Dujarric said in the statement.
A caravan of Israeli armored vehicles moves along a road amid farms near the Gaza border
Israel says its planned ground invasion into northern Gaza is intended to disarm the Gaza Strip and eradicate Hamas. But international humanitarian groups worry the invasion could have devastating repercussions for the civilian population.
The Palestine Red Cross Society said Israeli forces ordered them to evacuate the Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City by 4 p.m. local time on Saturday.
The aid organization said they cannot evacuate as their humanitarian mandate requires them to continue providing essential medical care.
US officials say Egypt has agreed to open its border for Palestinian Americans to escape
US officials say they negotiated a five-hour opening at the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt for Palestinian Americans to evacuate on Saturday, per The Washington Post.
But Palestinian Americans in Gaza said the border was still closed
Palestinian Americans have been waiting at the Rafah border to evacuate into Egypt. However, multiple people said that the border was not open when they arrived on Saturday, CNN reported.
"They told everybody to be here at 12, it's been two hours almost, nobody showed up, nobody is here to open the gates." Haneen Okal, a New Jersey resident, told CNN.
"People are waiting at the Rafah crossing point but it's not open and there is no clear direction from the embassy," Mai Abushaaban, a Houston, Texas resident with family waiting at the border, told CNN.
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