”To the residents of Gaza City, the Salah al-Din road is now closed to traffic southbound”, writes Israel's Arabic-speaking spokesman Avichay Adraee on X. ”From now on, it is only possible to travel southbound via the al-Rashid road”.
The message came despite reports in, among others, Al Jazeera earlier on Friday about completely congested traffic on the Coastal Road, also known as the al-Rashid road, which runs along the Mediterranean coast down to the Egyptian border. The approximately three-mile journey to al-Mawasi, which Israel calls a humanitarian zone, was said to take up to seven hours.
To facilitate the escape, the military gave desperate Palestinians the green light on Wednesday to use the alternative route, Salah al-Din or Saladin. But already then, it was said that this opportunity would only be available for two days.
Now, Adraee threatens that the army ”will continue to act with unprecedented force against Hamas and the rest of the terrorist groups”. He urges the population of Gaza to ”not let Hamas use you as human shields”.
Israel's ongoing offensive has been called an attempt to completely occupy the city of Gaza, with a population of millions. It includes both air strikes and ground forces and began on Monday evening. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled the city, but there are also residents who are exhausted, sick, have nowhere to go or stay for other reasons.
The ongoing Gaza war began when the extremist Islamist Hamas attacked Israel almost two years ago. This week, Hamas-loyal health authorities in Gaza announced that the war there has claimed 65,000 Palestinian lives.
