Red Cross warns against evacuation of Gaza

Residents 'at risk' as Israel tightens siege

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The Red Cross warned on Saturday that any Israeli attempt to evacuate Gaza City would put residents at risk, as Israel's military tightened its siege on the area ahead of a planned offensive.

Gaza's civil defence agency said that since dawn Israeli attacks had killed 66 people in the territory already devastated by nearly 23 months of war.

“It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions,” International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric said in a statement.

The dire state of shelter, healthcare and nutrition in Gaza meant evacuation was “not only unfeasible but incomprehensible under the present circumstances”.

Israel is under increasing international pressure to end its offensive in Gaza where the great majority of the population has been displaced multiple times and the United Nations has declared a famine.

But despite the calls at home and abroad for an end to the war, the Israeli army is readying itself for another military operation to seize the Palestinian territory's largest city and relocate its inhabitants.

On Saturday, at a rally in Tel Aviv demanding the negotiated release of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, captives’ families warned the impending offensive could imperil their lives.