‘The next phase is approaching’: Israel prepares to invade Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops massed in the south of the country that “the next stage is coming.” The military announced Saturday night that it was preparing “significant ground operations” as desperate Gazans fled to the south of the besieged Palestinian enclave in hopes of escaping retaliation for the incursion by Hamas militants.

While visiting Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for restraint and protection of civilians in both the Gaza Strip and Israel.

But, as the UK’s The Observer writes, for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, options are limited. They are already running low on food, water, fuel and medicine, and face a horrific escalation of bloodshed and suffering if fighting intensifies.

Many are afraid that they will be killed on the way to the south of the sector. One civilian evacuation convoy was bombed on Friday afternoon, reportedly killing 70 people, including women and children. They were on Salah al-Din Road, a main thoroughfare that Israel had declared “safe” for evacuation.

The number of victims of Israeli airstrikes in the sector by Saturday evening reached more than 2,200 people. They included 724 children and 458 women, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

People cannot get out of the besieged sector, and humanitarian aid cannot get inside. Israel has closed all checkpoints on its territory, and Egypt has strengthened security at checkpoints on its section of the border, saying it will not allow an influx of refugees.

Foreign nationals were briefly offered hope that they might be allowed to leave under a deal negotiated by Egypt, Israel and the United States. But by Saturday evening the passage to Egypt was not open to anyone.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after Palestinian Islamist militants broke through the high-tech fence surrounding the Gaza Strip on October 7 and went on a massacre, killing at least 1,300 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and taking dozens of hostages.

Before the start of its campaign, the Israeli military warned more than 1 million civilians to leave northern Gaza, initially by a Saturday morning deadline that was later extended until the evening. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the mass movement of so many people through an active war zone is “extremely dangerous and in some cases simply impossible.”

Doctors are already struggling to cope in hospitals overcrowded with patients and people seeking refuge from bombs and missiles. “People are sleeping on the floor everywhere, even inside the hospital. Overcrowding will lead to an outbreak of infectious diseases, says Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. – The doctors brought their families to the hospital for safety reasons – last night I slept on the operating table. One of our plastic surgery trainees was killed last night along with 30 members of his family.”

The Israeli military has said it is preparing for a long campaign in Gaza, where Hamas has been preparing defenses including networks of tunnels for years. Some 360,000 reservists were mobilized, described as the largest number in Israeli history, while columns of tanks massed near the border and some troops carried out their first ground operations in Gaza on Friday.

The Israeli military, backed by tanks, carried out raids to strike Palestinian missile crews and gather information about the whereabouts of hostages, a military spokesman said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said it had killed Hamas air operations chief Murad Abu Murad.

But Israel has not detailed its goals for the operation beyond destroying Hamas. Asked Saturday what an Israeli military victory might look like, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said: “That’s a big question. I don’t think I have the opportunity to answer that question right now.”

Palestinians and some regional officials have said they fear Israel’s ultimate goal is not only the destruction of Hamas, but also the displacement of the Palestinian people from Gaza. It would be a new version of the “Nakba,” an Arabic term for the forced expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians from former British Mandate territory during the creation of Israel in 1948.

King Abdullah of Jordan, whose country borders the occupied West Bank, warned against “any attempt to forcefully displace Palestinians from all Palestinian territories or cause internal displacement.” The head of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, urgently called on Guterres to condemn “this insane Israeli effort to transfer the population.”

Hamas called Israel’s evacuation order “propaganda” and mosques in Gaza City issued messages urging residents to stay, Reuters reported. “Hold on to your homes. Hold on to your land,” one broadcast said as tens of thousands of residents headed south.

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the evacuation warning was aimed at “temporarily moving people south to reduce harm to civilians,” adding that the U.N. should “praise Israel for these precautionary actions.”