Gaza City is a city in shock. Early in the morning, after days of bombing and destruction, the news spread that bent the legs of over a million inhabitants. By the end of the day - said leaflets of the Israeli army, messages spread on the web, radio broadcasts and text messages appeared on mobile phones - all the population residing in the north of the Strip had to leave the city, en masse, without exception, sick and children included, heading south of Wadi Gaza, the demarcation line with the central sector of the Strip.
Early in the morning the desperate exodus began. Those who still had fuel in the tank of the car got behind the wheel. But many others - hundreds, perhaps thousands - set off in donkey carts, covered to the hilt with luggage and children. Others, sadly proceeded on foot. In some sections of the road, traffic jams have been created, car traffic has slowed down with displaced people who would have risked their lives. According to Hamas' accusations, at least four Israeli bombs "ended up on the fleeing population on the road artery of Salah al-Din, with a toll of at least 70 dead and 200 wounded". The news has not been confirmed by any other source and could be part of the rhetoric of the militiamen who throughout the day have warned the population not to abandon Gaza City: "Do not leave your homes. Don't play into the hands of the enemy."
And while appeals against Israel's ultimatum also came from the UN and the Red Cross, on the day of the exodus an emergency within an emergency was triggered. That of the many wounded who cannot be transported. At al-Quds hospital, a source told ANSA that, beyond the orders, the staff and the sick would not move: "Even if we wanted to, we don't have ambulances. And then where could we ever hospitalize the seriously ill? All hospitals in the Strip are close to collapse. There are severe shortages of diesel, medicines, electricity, water supply. It is a catastrophe. We do not move. And let's hope that at least the hospital will be spared by the army."
In the northern sector, under the incessant bombardment, the population had already understood that sooner or later they would be forced to leave their homes in a matter of minutes: suitcases with photos of family members and identity documents were already ready at the entrance of many homes.
Ready to go, but without knowing where. Already yesterday, according to UNRWA, there were over 400,000 displaced people in Gaza and all the facilities of the UN agency in the Strip were packed. "Leaving home - said one of the many departing from Jabalya, a Palestinian town 4 kilometers from Gaza - means resigning oneself to going to another part of the Strip, to stay there in the open, while elsewhere the fighting continues".
In the rubble of a building, a man complained, saying that today's scenes were reminiscent of those of the Nakba: the 'disaster' of 1948 with the mass flight of Palestinians from their homes during fighting with the first Israelis.
"What happened to our fathers also happens to us today," he exclaimed: "They push us out of the house. All this was certainly planned in advance. It's a catastrophe." "Everyone has abandoned us. Where is the West Bank? Where are the young people? Why not sAre we protected?" repeated another person next to him.
In a square in Gaza, where a replica of one of Hamas' rockets, the 'M75', is displayed, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to shout slogans defying Israel. In the evening it was clear that while many thousands of inhabitants have indeed fled their homes, mass evacuation would not take place. And Israel has returned to remember that the order has not been revoked, indicating an itinerary that - at nightfall - remained passable to pass from the north to the center of the Strip. Meanwhile, Israeli tanks were gathering around Gaza.
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