'Gaza is on the brink of collapse', UN chiefs warn

‘Hellhole Gaza is on the brink of collapse’: Warning from UN chiefs as terrified families flee homes to escape Israel’s massive invasion force including armoured bulldozers capable of ripping buildings apart

• READ MORE: Military drones drop flyers telling 1.2mn civilians to flee for their lives as world leaders stress most Palestinians had ‘nothing to do’ with attacks

Terrified families fled their homes in Gaza yesterday – as aid agencies warned that it was being reduced to a ‘hellhole’.

Women carried children in their arms as they fled on foot, fear and desperation etched on their faces and their belongings piled high on trucks and donkey carts.

Families ignored official pleas from Hamas for them to stay in their homes and instead began an extraordinary flight into the unknown.

Many said they had no idea where they would go, only that they were desperate to leave before neighbouring Israel escalated its military retaliation for last Saturday’s terror attacks. 

Civilians have already endured a week of punishing airstrikes that have seen entire neighbourhoods obliterated and killed 1,900 people.

Meanwhile Israel’s soldiers, tanks and guns continued to mass on the border, prompting fears an invasion could begin at any moment.

Smoke billows following Israeli strikes amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza, October 13, 2023

Thousands were hurried to evacuate the north of Gaza ahead of an expected Israeli invasion 

Palestinians fleeing from northern Gaza to the south on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023

Palestinians in Gaza City flee for their lives after Israel’s evacuation order for the north

Queues of traffic were pictured trying to leave Gaza City – an evacuation order the UN said was ‘impossible’ to fully achieve

Smoke rises above buildings in the Gaza Strip, following an Israeli airstrike, on October 13

Its military might included huge armoured bulldozers capable of ripping buildings apart to clear a path for troops and tanks.

Aid agencies said the unprecedented evacuation was impossible, and would have to include refugee camps containing tens of thousands who have already fled. The Israeli military had ordered much of the population in the northern part of the territory to move south below the Wadi Gaza.

READ MORE: Hamas claims 70 people, mostly women and children, are killed in Israeli airstrike as they fled Gaza City

It means that more than a million people from the north must now cram into the southern part of this 25 mile-long strip of land.

The World Health Organisation said evacuating those with severe injuries would amount to a ‘death sentence’. Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, said Gaza was ‘fast becoming a hellhole and is on the brink of collapse’. Huge queues of traffic formed as thousands tried to head south, amid reports Hamas had blocked roads.

Those who had already reached the south said they were still under fire. A family of 16 who had reached Khan Yunis said they were crammed into a house with 60 others, and said they were British.

A man who gave his name as Mohammed told BBC Radio 4 he had fled with relatives including his father, 77, and three young children. He said: ‘We got in our cars, and the babies were sleeping at 5am… We were running for our lives, there was a huge shelling.

‘We are staying now in a home full of people evacuating as well. There is around 50 to 60 people in this house, but we are afraid for our lives. I’m not afraid for my life, I’m afraid for my children. We’ve been contacting the British consulate in London for the last five days and nobody knows what’s going on – they don’t have any plan for how we are going to get out of here.’

The Archbishop of Canterbury appealed for a humanitarian corridor in Gaza as civilians ‘cannot bear the costs of terrorists’.

Justin Welby condemned the Hamas attacks and said Israel’s anger was ‘entirely justified’. But he said more than two million civilians in Gaza faced a ‘catastrophe’.

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf said he believed the Government had placed a different value on Palestinian lives to those of Israelis.

Mr Yousaf, whose mother-in-law is trapped in Gaza, said he was ‘frustrated’ by ministers’ response and said they should put pressure on Israel to protect civilian lives.

Israel’s military response has seen Gaza’s only power plant forced to shut after it ran out of fuel, leaving the territory without electricity or running water.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by casualties from the airstrikes, and can operate only using emergency generators that are also running out of fuel. Medicins San Frontieres said staff at one of its hospitals had been given only two hours to evacuate, while they were still treating patients.

Palestinians have been left without fuel or power altogether since a siege started Monday

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Friday ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the southern area of the coastal enclave ahead of a possible Israeli ground offensive

An Israeli soldier directs a Merkava battle tank as it deploys with others tanks along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on October 13, 2023

Israel sends columns of tanks in to deploy along the border with the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned ground invasion

Israel has bombarded Gaza’s civilian population with airstrikes and artillery since Hamas launched a devastating attack on Saturday – and now stands poised for invasion

The Norwegian Refugee Council, which works in Israel and with the Palestinians, said the Israeli demand for a mass evacuation was tantamount to a war crime.

Its secretary general Jan Egeland said: ‘The collective punishment of countless civilians, among them children, women and the elderly, in retaliation for acts of horrible terror undertaken by armed men, is illegal under international law.’

Israel acknowledged its 24-hour deadline for the vast evacuation could prove unrealistic but continued to mass its soldiers and tanks close to the border. It said it would continue its blockade on fuel, food, water or medicines entering Gaza until Hamas freed all hostages taken in last Saturday’s brutal attacks that killed 1,300 people.

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