Evacuation of people to southern Gaza must be “seriously reconsidered”

O The EU official thus presents a position in line with that of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres.

“The order to leave more than a million people from northern Gaza must be seriously reconsidered, as António Guterres vigorously defended” in an opinion article in ‘The New York Times’, considered Borrell, in a publication on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Policy also argued that “all Gaza hostages must be released” and that “civilians must not be used as human shields.”

Borrell explained that he maintained “intense consultations” with the diplomacy of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who confirmed his “conviction that the priority is to guarantee the protection of all civilians”.

The EU’s representative for external relations insisted today, also in line with Guterres, that the displacement of the Gaza population required by Israeli forces is “dangerous” and “practically impossible”.

“For a million civilians to leave northern Gaza, through a densely populated war zone, to a place without food, water or shelter, in a besieged territory, is extremely dangerous and practically impossible,” he noted on the social network.

At 13:00 GMT (16:00 local time), the Israeli Army’s last ultimatum for Gaza civilians to flee south expired, with the threat to “attack with full force”.

The appeal affects 1.1 million people — almost half of Gaza’s population — the largest human displacement within that Strip.

Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7, which it called operation “Storm al-Aqsa”, with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of fighters armed by land, sea and air.

In response, Israel bombed several Hamas facilities in the Gaza Strip from the air, in an operation it dubbed “Iron Swords”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel is “at war” with Hamas, which, he recalled, was internationally classified as a terrorist organization.

Israel, which has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip and cut off water, fuel and electricity supplies, has so far confirmed 1,400 deaths and more than 3,000 injuries since the start of the Hamas offensive, supported by Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian branch of Jihad Islamic.

On the Palestinian side, the Ministry of Health confirmed today that, in Gaza, Israeli retaliatory attacks left at least 2,215 dead and 8,714 injured and that there were also 47 dead in the West Bank, as well as around 600 injured.

According to Israeli army spokesman Richard Hecht, around 1,200 Hamas fighters were also killed during clashes with security forces on Israeli territory.

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