Israel warns more than 1 million people to evacuate northern Gaza

Palestinians with their belongings flee from their homes following Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Friday.

Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images

TEL AVIV, Israel — The fighting between Israel and Hamas entered a seventh day on Friday with fears of a ground offensive growing stronger following an Israeli order to evacuate the northern region of the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s military told the United Nations late Thursday that all of northern Gaza’s population needs to evacuate to the southern portion of the enclave, a U.N. spokesman said. The Israeli order gave 24 hours for more than 1 million people, nearly half of Gaza’s population, to evacuate. The Israeli order applied to all U.N. staff and those sheltered in U.N. facilities — including schools, health centers and clinics.

Within hours of the order, Israel faced opposition, both from Hamas and on the international stage. “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” the U.N. said.

Human Rights Watch said the roads are rubble, fuel is scarce, and the main hospital is in the evacuation zone, making it difficult for people to leave and head south.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the Israeli military demanding that over 1 million civilians in northern Gaza relocate to its south, “absent of any guarantees of safety or return, would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.”

Meanwhile, the Hamas leadership called on Palestinians to ignore the Israeli order. “We say to the…