The Latest Israelis protest near the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv accusing the government of failing to protect citizens near Gaza Israeli
The humanitarian crisis is mounting in Gaza as Palestinians scramble Saturday to evacuate from the northern part of the tiny Gaza Strip and head south before an expected Israeli military offensive there.
More than 2 million people are facing an imminent water crisis and lack of other vital supplies in Gaza after Israel stopped the flow of resources into the region.
“It has become a matter of life and death. It is a must; fuel needs to be delivered now into Gaza to make water available for 2 million people,” said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner general.
At the U.N. base in the southern Gaza Strip – where UNRWA has moved its operations – drinking water is also running out. Thousands of people have sought refuge there after Israel issued an evacuation directive from northern Gaza, covering 1.1 million residents, or about half of the territory’s population.
Only in the past 12 hours, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. Nearly 1 million people have been displaced in one week alone.
The six-hour window has ended that Israel gave the Gazans to evacuate before its ground attack in the area. The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, saturated the border with thousands of reservists, troops and military equipment amid a relentless onslaught on the territory, in retaliation for a bloody attack by the militant group Hamas on October 7.
So far, Israeli strikes have killed about 1,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Earlier Saturday, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Israel’s air, land and sea blockade on Gaza will continue into a seventh day.
“We are preparing for the next stages,’ he stated but shared no information about whether it would be a ground incursion.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas after its fighters stormed through towns and villages in southern Israel last week, killing 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians, and making off with scores of hostages.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 14, 2023.
U.S. diplomacy
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for the protection of civilians in the Gaza Strip and Israel. He was in the United Arab Emirates, his fifth stop in an intensive multinational trip, to stop the war in Israel from expanding across the region.
