Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden have agreed to restore water supplies to the southern Gaza Strip. This will help the civilian population to clear the north of the coastal enclave and move south, as requested by the army, Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz wrote on Sunday on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
Israel’s military could step up its destruction of Hamas’ Islamic infrastructure in the northern Gaza Strip, Katz said. He had previously linked the provision of basic supplies to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip with the release of Israeli hostages held by the terrorist organization. However, the United Nations has called on Israel to allow it to provide food, water, medicine and fuel to people in the isolated area.
In recent days, the US government has campaigned to protect the civilian population in the Palestinian territory. “We stand for the protection of civilians and want to ensure that innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas can reach safe areas where they are protected from shelling and have access to essential goods such as food, water, shelter and medicine,” he said. US President Joe Biden’s security adviser Jake Sullivan on US television on Sunday. He said, citing his Israeli counterpart, that Israel had restarted water supplies in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to UN estimates, around one million people were displaced in the Gaza Strip in the first week of the war between Israel and Hamas. The actual number of internally displaced people is likely to be even higher as many people in the coastal area continued to leave their homes, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) spokeswoman Juliette Touma said. on Sunday.
The Israeli army called on civilians in the northern Gaza Strip to flee on Friday morning. According to its own statements, the Israeli military is preparing for a ground offensive into Palestinian territory. The army reiterated on Sunday that it would not carry out any attacks on a route from the north of the Gaza Strip within three hours so that residents in the south of the Palestinian territory could reach safety. Israel accuses Hamas of blocking the escape of civilians and using them as “human shields”.
According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Israeli request triggered a “mass exodus”. “A mass exodus from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip is underway,” the UN office in Geneva said on Sunday. Partner aid organizations reported that “the number of internally displaced people has increased significantly in the last 24 hours,” OCHA said. As of Thursday evening, OCHA counted 423,378 internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip. Almost two-thirds of them were housed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in a total of 102 emergency shelters.
According to the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are currently around three dozen Austrians and their families in the Gaza Strip. Most of them have dual citizenship and are already in the southern Gaza Strip, APA reported on Saturday night. In cooperation with Israel and Egypt, efforts are being made to allow those wishing to leave Palestinian territory into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
The Israeli army announced on Sunday another window of opportunity for the evacuation of civilians from the north of the Gaza Strip towards the south. The Israeli army spokesman published information in Arabic about
The army will not attack this corridor during this period. Anyone concerned about their family’s safety should head south, the statement said. Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, looks after its own members and their families. There were also reports that Hamas was preventing civilians from fleeing. Israel has repeatedly accused the Islamic organization of using its own population as a human shield.
Israel’s appeals to the people of Gaza are also broadcast through other channels, including leaflets. According to the military, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have already moved south of the narrow coastal strip following previous evacuation calls. Around 2.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip.