Gaza City residents wave white flags as they evacuate — and Israeli army circles: ‘Most dangerous trip of my life’
Fleeing Gaza City residents waved white flags past Israeli tanks reportedly protecting them from Hamas gunfire Tuesday as the civilians evacuated during a four-hour window Israel gave before it stormed in.
The Israel Defense Forces posted footage of s🐠cores of Palestinians walking and riding donkey carts away from the Gaza Strip’s largest c𓃲ity to “ safe zones” to the south between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time.
The video captured the residents passing Israeli tanks thꦕat have encircled the area ahead of the Jewish state’s expected ground invasion of the densely populated region to try to dest🅺roy the terror group Hamas.
Israel said the tanks came under Hamas𒅌 fire as they helped clear the evacuation route and that the military ended up protecting Palestinian civilians from the terrorists.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 🎉Netanyahu said late Monday, “We are fighting an enemy that is particularly brutal.
“They are using their civilians as human shields, and while we are asking the Palestinian civilian population to leave the war zone, they a𒀰re preventing them at gunpoint.’’
𓂃But some Gaza residents said Israeli soldiers also fired ꦬnear them possibly to scare them.
The Palestinians said𒊎 Israeli soldiers ordered them to raise their hands and wave the white flags to signal to the Israeli forces that they ⛄were evacuating.
Hamas, which says 900,000 Palestinians are still sheltering in northern Gaza, accused the IDF of forcing the evaꦦcuees to wave flags to humiliate them.
The evacuatꦿions came a day after about 5,000 people fled Gaza City on foot in another four-hou🌟r window, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“As roads leading to the main crossing junc꧋tion had been heavily damaged, it was only reachable by foot,” on Monday night.
“Entire families, including children, elderly people, and persons with ⭕disabilities reported walking long dist𝕴ances, carrying their personal belongings by hand,” the post said.
Gaza City resident Adam Fayez Zeyara posted an online selfie of⛦ himself along the route, cal🌠ling the journey “The most dangerous trip in my life.
“W🙈e saw the tanks from point-blank. We saw decomposed body par𓂃ts. We saw death,” the shaken resident said.
The heart-wrenching development came as:
— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made some of his most direct comments yet about the end game of his country’s war on Hamas, saying late Monday that Israel would secure Gaza for an “indefinite” amount of time after it removes the terrorists from power.
But Mark Regev, a senior adviser to the 🌼PM, appeared to try to downplay his boss’s potentially incendiary comments Tuesday during a CNN interview Tuesday.
Regev said I💃srael’s post-war plan does not involve an “ongoing occupation.
Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel
“There will have to be an Israeli securit🦋y presence, but that doesn’t mean Israel is re-occupying Gaza, that doesn’t♎ mean that Israel is there to govern the Gazans,” Netanyahu’s aide said.
“On the contrary, we are interested in establishing new frameworks where the Gazans can ru꧅le themselves, where there can be international support for the reconstruction of Gaza.
“Hopefully, we can bring in countries — Arab countries as well — for a reconstruction of a demilitarized, pos🌜t-Hamas Gaza,” Regev said.
— Netanyahu on Monday rejected a proposal from his top ally, President Biden, to pause fighting to allow more aid into the densely populated region, which is reeling from depleted supplies of food, medicine, fuel and water, unless there is some kind of quid pro quo from Hamas.
💯Israel’s critics have been demanding such “humanitarian pauses.’’
“It has been one full month of carnage, of incessant suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage and despair,” s𒁏aid UN Human Rights Commissioner Volcker Turk in a statement Tuesday as he traveled to the region to observe the Rafah crossing from Egypt, which is the only route for humanitarian aid for theღ blockaded besieged territory.
Netanyahu later said he migh🐻t allow “lꦕittle pauses.’’
“Well, , general cease-fire, in Gaza without the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu said. “As far as tact♒ical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there. We’ve had them before, I suppose, we’ll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods꧃ to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave. But I don’t think there’s going to be a general cease-fire.”
— Israel said it has attacked more than 14,000 terror targets in the past month.
The IDF has “destroyed more than 100 terrorist tunnel shafts and mo﷽re than 4,000 weapons, many of which inside mosques, kindergartens, and residential buildings,” said IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
— Israel said its troops have been attacked by Hamas fighters “popping out” from tunnels in Gaza City to fire rocket-propelled grenades at them, adding Tuesday that it destroyed several tunnels in a residential area in Beit Hanoun in the northeastern part of the Gaza Strip.
“We’re really putting an effort into taking out these tunnels as we move in and close in on Gaza City,” Israeli L𒐪t.-Col. Richard Hecht told reporters.
–The World Health Organization said Tuesday that the destruction at Gaza’s medical facilities has forced some doctors to perform operations, including amputations, without anesthesia.
–As Israel implored Palestinian residents to flee their homes and head south, two Israeli air strikes in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah killed 23 people Tuesday, according to the health officials controlled by Hamas.
Rescuers in Khan Younis tried to pull a girl buried up to herও waist in debris from the rubble of a house that was bombed, killing 11 people.
“We are civilians,” said resident Ahmed Ayesh, who was rescued.
“This is the bravery of the so-called Israel, they show their might and power against civilians, babies inside, kids inside, and elderly,” the man raged.
–On Tuesday, 400 US citizens and their family members were allowed to enter Egypt, according to the State Department, the Jerusalem Post reported.
One hundred Egyptians and 262 Jordanian citize💧ns were also allowed to leave Gaza, officials said.
While hundreds of Palestinians with foreign passports have been permit🤪ted to escape to Africa since last week, just about all of the 2.3 million Gaza residents have been trapped in the narrow strip.
“It’s just a horror movie that keeps putting on repeat,” said Suzan Beseiso, 31, aಌ Palestinian-American who was able to leave Gaza for Egypt last week, from Cairo.
“No sleep.𝔍 No food. No water. You keep evacuating from one place to another.”
— Raging spikes in antisemitic acts are occurring in France and Germany, according to new figures released by both countries Tuesday, with a German official noting the announcement “with great pain, just two days before the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht 1938,” referring to the violent Nazi attacks on Jewish homes and businesses in November 1938.
— Hamas-linked Gaza health officials said Monday that more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s relentless air strikes in the month after terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered more than 1,400 people and abducted about 250 others. The Palestinian terrorists did not differentiate between civilians and militants in their carnage.
WHO was t🍸he latest group to call for a🎶n end to the fighting Tuesday.
“We urge all parties to agree to a humanitarian ceasefire and work toward lasting peace. We again call for the immediate release of the hostages,” Director
“History will judge us all by wh♏at we do t🌱o end this tragedy.”
With Post wires