DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians scrambled to flee northern Gaza on Saturday after the Israeli military ordered nearly half the population to evacuate south and carried out limited ground forays ahead of an expected land offensive a week after Hamas' bloody, wide-ranging attack into Israel.
Israel renewed calls on social media and in leaflets dropped from the air for some 1 million Gaza residents to move south, while Hamas urged people to stay in their homes. The U.N. and aid groups have said such a rapid exodus would cause untold human suffering, with hospital patients and others unable to relocate.
Families in cars, trucks and donkey carts packed with possessions crowded a main road heading away from Gaza City as Israeli airstrikes continued to hammer the small, besieged territory, where supplies of food, fuel and drinking water were running low because of a complete Israeli siege. Egyptian officials said the southern Rafah crossing would open later Saturday for the first time in days to allow foreigners out.
Israel said Palestinians could travel along two main routes without being harmed from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time. It that “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians had already headed south. But some live up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, and many roads were demolished by airstrikes and fuel was running short.
Thousands of people crammed into a U.N.-run school-turned-shelter in Deir…
