Exodus from North Gaza Displaces 1 Million

With its troops and armor inching closer, Israel continued to warn of further military operations in northern Gaza on Saturday while the United Nations reported that a mass exodus from the area had displaced nearly 1 million people amid a dire scarcity of water, fuel and other essential supplies.

Scenes of Gaza residents fleeing in cars, horse-drawn carriages and on foot came as Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees, said an electricity blackout and a lack of drinking water had become “a matter of life or death.”

Evacuees struggled to find food, water and shelter in southern Gaza. Displaced families crammed into schools and hospitals while others crowded into the houses of friends and family. Many more are sleeping out in cars, on chairs and on the ground, even as Israeli airstrikes continued.

At least 70 people were killed Friday when Israeli airstrikes hit a convoy of vehicles fleeing south, according to Gazan authorities. Israel said it was looking into the matter.

Ahead of a widely anticipated ground war in Gaza, Israel stepped up its efforts to persuade hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians to leave northern Gaza.

“We intend to continue attacking with enormous force in Gaza City,” the Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Saturday. “Any resident who chooses not to leave is putting himself and his family’s lives in danger.”

Israel on Saturday marked one week since the Hamas attacks, an operation that killed more than 1,300 people. The fate of more than 150 hostages that Hamas seized during the incursion remained unclear.

On Saturday afternoon, Israeli armored vehicles massed just north of Gaza’s northern border with Israel in anticipation of an invasion. On Friday, the Israeli military conducted limited raids into Gaza.

Retaliation by Israel since the Hamas attacks has imposed a heavy toll on the more than 2 million people who live in Gaza. Palestinian officials say about 2,215 people have been killed in Gaza in the past week.

Lazzarini, who leads the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, said Saturday that no humanitarian supplies had been allowed into Gaza for the past week. The territory’s water plant and public water networks had stopped working, he said.

“It’s a struggle for life here,” a Gaza resident, Zeina Ghanem, said Saturday. “There’s no food. There’s no water. There’s no sleep.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/14/world/israel-news-gaza-hamas-war/here-is-the-latest-on-the-war">The New York Times</a>.