Hamas has called on Palestinians to stay in their homes after Israel issued sweeping evacuation orders for almost half of Gaza’s more than 2.3 million people ahead of an expected ground offensive.

The Hamas authority for refugee affairs today told residents in the north of the territory to “remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war waged by the occupation”.

    • @blewit@lemm.ee
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      -109 months ago

      From the article you posted:

      After the strike, IDF officials said the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was not the specific target in the counter-attack against Hamas and that the bombs were intended to strike an underground smuggling tunnel nearby, per CNN.

      The IDF also issued a clarification later Tuesday, after the strike near the Rafah crossing, saying there is “no official call by Israel for residents of the Gaza Strip to exit into Egypt,” the Times of Israel reported.

      • @assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        119 months ago

        Whatever the case, they bombed it. They should have known the variability in where it would land and called off the operation when they saw the humanitarian corridor was in that zone.

        • BraveSirZaphod
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          -79 months ago

          Was anybody actually hurt?

          Telling people to go to an area and then bombing a valid target next to it is scary, sure, but it’s not a deliberate attempt to kill civilians.

          • @assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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            59 months ago

            Sure, but you really shouldn’t tell people a zone is safe if there’s a decent probability an attack could spill over into it.

            • BraveSirZaphod
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              -49 months ago

              If the choice is between keeping civilians in a dense urban area that’s going to see a ground invasion soon or telling them to evacuate to a safer area that may still see some nearby bombings, the latter is certainly preferable.

        • @blewit@lemm.ee
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          -129 months ago

          War is messy. Collateral damage is unfortunate. What Hamas did last Saturday wasn’t collateral damage.

        • circuscritic
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          39 months ago

          I tried browsing his comment history because I had the same assessment, and honestly, it’s 50/50.

          My best guess is that he’s just so fervently pro-Israel that if he ever comes across anything that doesn’t 100% confirm his own biases, he immediately turns away.