Israeli military calls for evacuation of all civilians in Gaza City ahead of feared ground offensive: Updates

Editor's note: This page reflects the news from the Israel-Hamas war from Thursday, Oct. 12. For the latest news and updates on the conflict in Israel, read USA TODAY's live coverage for Friday, Oct. 13.

The Israel Defense Forces called for the evacuation of all civilians in Gaza City early Friday, on the heels of what the United Nations said was a warning they received from Israel to evacuate 1.1 million people living in the north of Gaza within 24 hours.

The military warned civilians that the armed forces would be operating in the city in the following days. "This evacuation is for your own safety," the Israeli military said in a warning it said was sent to Gaza City civilians.

The broader order was delivered to the U.N., according to United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, who called the order “impossible” without “devastating humanitarian consequences.”

"This is chaos, no one understands what to do," said Inas Hamdan, an officer at the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza City while she grabbed whatever she could throw into her bags as the panicked shouts of her relatives could be heard around her. She said all the U.N. staff in Gaza City and northern Gaza had been told to evacuate south to Rafah.

Alarmed civilians and aid workers, who were already in distress from Israeli airstrikes and a blockade, were sent into chaos. Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City, told The Associated Press through tears that there was no way one million people could evacuate that fast.

“Forget about food, forget about electricity, forget about fuel. The only concern now is just if you make it, if you’re going to live,” Farsakh said.

Farsakh said many medics were refusing to evacuate hospitals and abandoned patients, which included the elderly, children, and many wounded civilians.

The Israeli military did not immediately confirm the broader evacuation order but the alert could signal an imminent ground offensive. Israel has been bombarding Gaza with airstrikes and on Thursday an airstrike killed at least 45 people in a Gaza refugee camp Thursday, the territory's interior ministry said, potentially stoking global protests a former Hamas leader has called for that have provoked fears among travelers.

Ministry spokesman Eyad Bozum told The Associated Press the late-afternoon airstrike hit the al-Shihab family house at the center of the densely populated Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza, adding that the death toll would probably rise. Dozens were wounded and the list of casualties shows more than half the dead were children.

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Developments:

∎ The Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1,500 people in Gaza. A White House spokesman said Thursday the U.S. death toll from the Hamas attacks rose to 27 and 14 remain missing.

∎ After mobilizing 360,000 reservists, the Israeli military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Gaza but the political leadership has not yet decided on one, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told reporters.

∎ About 423,000 people – more than 18% of Gaza’s population – have fled their homes, most of them packing into schools run by the United Nations.

∎ Two Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank when Israeli settlers opened fire at a funeral for three Palestinians who had been killed in a settler rampage the day before, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported.

US death toll rises US death toll rises; lawmaker says Egypt warned Israel before attack: Updates

U.S. citizens will have access to charter flights out of Israel

The White House said Thursday it will arrange charter flights to Europe starting Friday. On Wednesday, the State Department raised its alert level for American travelers to Israel and the West Bank, urging them to reconsider their plans. Travel advisories already are in place urging increased caution for U.S. citizens traveling to Jordan and Turkey and advising them to reconsider travel to Egypt and Lebanon because of terrorism.

"Terrorists may attack with little or no warning," the agency warns.

The uncertainty follows a trip to Israel by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv in a show of support. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to arrive in Israel on Friday to discuss military aid.

Blinken is continuing his trip with stops in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, seeking to prevent the conflict from escalating and pursue the release of hostages.

Israel says siege will continue until hostages are freed

The Israeli siege of Gaza has left its 2.3 million people desperate for food, fuel and medicine while hospitals get overwhelmed amid relentless bombing and lack of power. Those conditions won't improve until Hamas militants free the approximately 150 hostages captured in the weekend assault, Israel officials said. Israel has halted deliveries of basic necessities and electricity to Gaza, and Egypt has enforced a blockade. Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade, restricting the passage of people and goods in and out of the territory,

“Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media.

Aids organizations are warning of a humanitarian crisis as resources become increasingly scarce, and what's available is hard to access because of airstrikes that have involved 6,000 munitions, according to the Israeli military.

“We can’t flee because anywhere you go, you are bombed,” Khalil Abu Yahia said from a refugee camp in north Gaza. “You need a miracle to survive here.”

$6 billion in unfrozen funds not released to Iran for now

Iran, long a financial and military supporter of Hamas but not directly linked so far to Saturday's attacks, won't have access for a while to the $6 billion unfrozen by the U.S. as part of a prisoner exchange last month.

The U.S. has reached a deal with Qatar, where the funds are held, not to release them for the time being, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The Biden administration has being criticized for the agreement with Iran, which freed five detained Americans, and Hamas' weekend onslaught in Israel has only sharpened Republican rebukes. Administration officials say Iran will only be allowed to spend the money, which is not technically refrozen but inaccessible, for humanitarian needs.

"Funds from that account are overseen by the Treasury Department, can only be dispensed for humanitarian goods — food, medicine, medical equipment — and never touch Iranian hands,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.

Blinken meets with Netanyahu in Israel

Blinken expressed U.S. solidarity with Israel, its military operations in Gaza and its goal of destroying the militant Hamas organization during his meeting with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

"Hamas has only one agenda, to destroy Israel and to murder Jews," Blinken said. "No country can or would tolerate the slaughter of its citizens or return to the conditions that allowed it to take place."

The war has already claimed over 2,500 lives on both sides. International aid groups warn that the death toll may rise after Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, fuel and electricity to Gaza.

Blinken said victims from Saturday's attack include citizens from 36 nations. He said Hamas, instead of promoting the well-being of Gazans, rules repressively and funnels resources to "terror tunnels and rockets."

Blinken said the Israeli government shared photos and videos of Hamas' atrocities and called them "overwhelming.''

"A baby, an infant, riddled with bullets. Soldiers beheaded. Young people burned alive in their cars or in their highway runs,'' Blinken said. "It's simply depravity in the worst imaginable way.''

Social media site X says it is removing war disinformation

The social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, has removed or labeled tens of thousands of pieces of "illegal" content that encouraged violence or misrepresents the war, CEO Linda Yaccarino said. Yaccarino released a statement in response to a warning from the European Commission that X could face penalties if it did not take action against "illegal content and disinformation" since Hamas' attack on Israel.

"There is no place on X for terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups and we continue to remove such accounts in real time," Yaccarino's statement said.

US brings 'massive' firepower to region as deterrent

Austin plans to meet with military and civilian leaders to signal the depth of the U.S. commitment to Israel and to assess its requests for security assistance, according to a senior Defense official.

Israel has received its first shipment of weaponry this week, according to the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. Israel has sought missile interceptors for its Iron Dome air defense system, precision-guided munitions and artillery shells. Shipments from Pentagon supplies are expected to be continuous, the official said.

Meantime, the U.S. military continued to build a “massive amount” of firepower in the Middle East this week as a warning to adversaries not to attack Israel, the official said. The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and the ships in its strike group are operating in the eastern Mediterranean with intelligence and long-range strike capabilities, the official said. In addition, a squadron of A-10 ground-attack aircraft arrived in the region Thursday.

− Tom Vanden Brook

Across US, families wait for news about loved ones in Israel

Gillian Kaye awoke Saturday to a nightmare: Her stepson was missing.

Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, was last seen by his family early that morning in Israel when Hamas destroyed his home as part of an unprecedented attack on Israeli towns near the border with Gaza. He lived at kibbutz Nir Oz with his wife, two daughters, and 400 others until it was decimated by the militant group, leaving only around 160 people alive and accounted for.

“This is so unfathomable,” said Kaye, a resident of Sarasota, Florida who was traveling when she learned of the assault.

Dekel-Chen, who holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, is among an estimated 130 missing Israelis following the attacks.

According to his family, he sent his wife and children to the house’s bomb shelter while he confronted the attackers upstairs. Kaye and her family are urging Americans to write to their representatives in Congress to bolster search and rescue efforts. With no information about her stepson's whereabouts, Kaye said spreading the word is the only course of action.

“We do what needs to get done,” Kaye said. “And what needs to get done is to do everything possible to get Sagui home.”

− Heather Bushman, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

FBI provides expertise in finding hostages

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department has been working with families of missing Americans to locate their loved ones, including those taken hostage. The department offered Israel assistance through the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, Operational Security Division and Laboratory Division.

“These highly trained hostage rescue specialists and other experts stand ready to advise their Israeli counterparts to help locate and bring home missing U.S. citizens,” said Garland, whose ancestors fled religious persecution in Eastern Europe.

“And, as always, we remain focused on the threat terrorism poses to our country,” Garland added.

− Bart Jansen

A summary of Israel-Hamas war

Hamas has vowed to annihilate Israel and has been responsible for numerous suicide bombings and other deadly attacks since the militant group was formed in 1987. On Saturday, about 1,000 Hamas fighters stormed across the Israeli border by land and sea in an attack that caught Israel's military off-guard.

Hamas says Saturday's attack was partially a response to Israeli police activity at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. The Jerusalem mosque is located on a holy site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. But Hamas leaders also blame unrelenting Israeli crackdowns and a 16-year blockade in Gaza and the West Bank, continued construction of settlements − which the international community considers illegal − and Israel's tight military control of Gaza.

Also, the attack came amid thawing relations between some Arab nations and Israel, the blood enemy of Hamas. The attack and Israel's harsh response could slow or derail those diplomatic overtures.

By land, sea, air and online: How Hamas used the internet to terrorize Israel

What is Hamas?

Hamas – an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic resistance movement – was founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by a Palestinian activist connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. The State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. Several other nations also consider it a terrorist organization.

In 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections, and in 2007 the group violently seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which was controlled by the rival Fatah movement that still governs the West Bank. There have been no elections since. The group calls for establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state that would replace the current state of Israel and believes in the use of violence to carry out the destruction of Israel.

Hamas receives financial, material and logistical support from Iran, though so far, international leaders, including in Israel, have said there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in Hamas’ attack.

How large is the Gaza Strip?

Gaza, or the Gaza Strip, is a densely populated Palestinian enclave of about 2.3 million people. The narrow strip of land − about 150 square miles, or less than half the size of New York City − is about 25 miles long and six miles wide. Gaza shares a northern and eastern border with Israel and a southwestern border with Egypt while its western side abuts the Mediterranean Sea.

Who controls the Gaza Strip?

Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections and in 2007 seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority, controlled by the rival Fatah movement, administers semi-autonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas has fought four wars against Israel since taking power.

How did the hostilities between Israel and Palestinians start?

The current war is a culmination of decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territory, which has been occupied since Israel was founded in 1948 and where Hamas rules the Gaza Strip. Jewish people and Muslims have some of their holiest sites in Jerusalem. Before Israel’s founding, the land was known as the Palestinian mandate, officially ruled by Great Britain. Prompted by the Holocaust, the UN United Nations adopted a resolution in 1947 that aimed to divide the Palestinian mandate into two states, Arab and Jewish.

War quickly broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors, leading to Israeli expansion three-quarters of Palestinian mandate territory. Over half the Palestinian Arab population fled or was expelled, according to the U.N. Several conflicts between Israel and Arab states in the region followed over the next decades, and peace efforts that improved relations with other nations did not solve the issue of Palestinian self-determination.

Israel captured the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has since imposed restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians there. These are all territories that had been sought by Palestinians for their future independent state. But Hamas rejects proposals for a two-state solution and believes in the eradication of Israel altogether through violent means.

Palestinian uprisings, or intifadas, brought military clashes and protests against Israeli occupation and led to crackdowns by Israel’s military forces, and many were killed and injured on both sides.

− Jeanine Santucci

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel war news updates: Israel orders the evacuation of Gaza City