LAST UPDATE | 21 Jul

PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins has condemned Israel’s shelling of the city of Deir el-Balah.

The Israeli military yesterday ordered those in the central Gaza area to leave immediately as it was expanding operations, including “in an area where it has not operated before” in more than 21 months of war.

Between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area when the evacuation order was issued, according to initial estimates from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, with whole families seen carrying what few belongings they had on donkey carts heading south.

President Higgins released a statement this evening saying that the move will result in the destruction of infrastructure, ensuring there will be “nothing to return to on the part of those displaced”.

He called for an independent body or the European Union to find out how the recently negotiated aid for those dying of starvation, “including the tiny infants and breastfeeding mothers who are going to die due to dehydration”, is being provided.

Across the television screens of Europe and the world we are seeing images of death that was preventable.

“As the directly-elected Head of State of a Member of the European Union, I repeat my many appeals to those who have not broken silence on these issues to join with Ireland and others in seeking an immediate delivery of aid and a strengthening of diplomatic measures to achieve this, and emergency action by the United Nations to end this preventable loss of life,” the president said.

Trapped

In the newly-taregted Deir el-Balah, a resident told AFP today that “during the night, we heard huge and powerful explosions shaking the area as if it were an earthquake”.

He said this was “due to artillery shelling in the south-central part of Deir el-Balah and the southeastern area”.

“We are extremely worried and fearful that the army is planning a ground operation in Deir el-Balah and the central camps where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are sheltering,” the man added.

The spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP that “we received calls from several families trapped in the Al-Baraka area of Deir el-Balah due to shelling by Israeli tanks”.

“There are a number of wounded, but no one can reach the area to evacuate them,” he added.

The Israeli military did not provide immediate comment when contacted by AFP.

‘Extremely critical’

Since the start of the war, nearly all of Gaza’s population of more than two million – which is also facing severe food shortages – has been displaced at least once by repeated Israeli evacuation orders.

According to OCHA, the latest order means that 87.8% of Gaza’s area is now under evacuation orders or within Israeli militarised zones.

Mai Elawawda, communications officer in Gaza for UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, described the situation as “extremely critical”.

“Shelling is taking place all around our office, and military vehicles are just 400 metres away from our colleagues and their families,” she said, adding that: “Everyone is now evacuating, with most unsure where to go next.”

Pope Leo has spoken by phone to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, about the war in Gaza and violence in the West Bank, according to the Vatican.

It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo’s papacy began.

“The Holy Father repeated his appeal for international humanitarian law to be fully respected, emphasising in particular the obligation to protect civilians and sacred places, the prohibition of the indiscriminate use of force and of the forced transfer of the population,” the Vatican wrote.

The pope emphasised “the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid”, it said.

It followed a call on Friday between the pope and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a day after a strike by Israel on Gaza’s only Catholic Church that killed three people.

On Sunday, Leo condemned the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza and again called for a peaceful resolution.

The Holy See, which supports a two-state solution, formally recognised the state of Palestine through an agreement signed in 2015, one of the first states in Europe to do so.

In 2014, Israeli and Palestinian presidents Shimon Peres and Abbas planted an olive tree alongside Pope Francis in the Vatican gardens.

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