Mass exodus begins in Gaza as Israel tells people to leave ahead of more raids

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• Geoff Bennett:

  The Israeli military has told more than one million Gaza residents to leave their homes in advance of further airstrikes and an expected ground operation in retaliation for last Saturday's Hamas terror attacks in Israel.

  Amna in Tel Aviv tonight — Amna.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Barrages of rockets are still flying from Gaza here into Israel.

  And, this evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is striking Hamas with — quote — "unprecedented might" and that this Israeli campaign was — quote — "only the beginning."

  The death toll continues to climb, mostly now in Gaza, with more than 3,100 people killed on both sides in seven days of fighting.

  Leila Molana-Allen again begins our coverage tonight.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  In the Northern Gaza Strip, the beginning of a mass exodus, the streets filled with confusion after Israel's military gave residents 24 hours to leave and relocate south.

  Hopeless and homeless, Gazans have nowhere to go.

• Woman (through interpreter):

  The Israeli army kicked us out of our homes. We couldn't find water or food or anything. Nobody's looking our way or helping us. We are lost.

• Woman (through interpreter):

  Where do they want to throw us? In the streets? There are children and women. This is collective punishment. Where are the other nations and the free world? Why this silence in the face of all this suffering?

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  Families leave by car, others on foot, carrying entire lives with them in a few small bags.

  "NewsHour" producer Shams Odeh watched as they left.

• Shams Odeh:

  After the announcement of the Israelis is that the Gazan people, the Palestinians, more than one million people must leave Gaza City and go to the south, now, if you look into the streets here in Gaza, some people are leaving, and now it's an empty city. If you go there, there is people, they cannot find cars even to live in to the south.

  There is no transportation that they can use. Now Gaza streets empty.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  For nearly a week, Israel has pounded Gaza with airstrikes, reducing its streets to rubble. What's left, an empty wasteland.

  And the Israeli siege has blocked essential supplies from entering the territory. A United Nations spokesman today warned the consequences from the evacuation could be calamitous.

• Rolando Gomez, United Nations Spokesperson:

  The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences. The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order to be rescinded.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  But Israel is preparing for a ground assault of Gaza, in retribution for her masses terror attack and said it conducted raids today targeting militants inside.

  Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the evacuation was necessary.

• Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister (through interpreter):

  We are asking all the civilians in Gaza City to go south of Gaza. And the reason is that because we don't want to harm them. We are going to destroy Hamas infrastructures, Hamas headquarters, Hamas military establishment, and take this phenomena out of Gaza.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  Standing by him, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who reaffirmed unwavering American support.

  Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense: The United States will make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself. And Israel has a right to protect its people.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  Multiple shipments of U.S. military aid have arrived in Israel, with more expected today. Meantime, Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarked on a tour of Arab countries. This morning in Jordan, he met with King Abdullah the second and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

  Later, in Qatar, he spoke with leaders about the hostages taken by Hamas in Saturday's attacks.

  President Biden spoke today with families of the American hostages, which he addressed this afternoon.

  Joe Biden, President of the United States: They're going through agony not knowing what the status of their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, children. It's gut-wrenching. I assured them my personal commitment to do everything possible, everything possible to return every missing American to the families.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  Around the world, Jewish institutions are on high alert, after a former Hamas leader called for a day of rage against Israel. In Beijing, an Israeli Embassy employee was stabbed in broad daylight.

  But across the Muslim world, massive protests, from Turkey, to Iran, and Yemen. Residents took to the streets in support of Palestinians and to condemn the Israeli state. But at the very heart of this conflict in Jerusalem, the city expected to see some of the fiercest violence during Friday prayers today, it was almost business as usual.

  The young Palestinian men who often clash with security forces here were nowhere to be seen.

  Here in Jerusalem's Old City, the authorities have put a ban on young Palestinian men entering the contentious Al-Aqsa compound today. Many still tried and were turned away. And clashes have broken out with security forces where one group tried to force their way in; 35-year-old Jerusalem bus driver Taher Gibran, determined to pray at the mosque he attends every Friday, decided to come and try.

• Taher Gibran, Israeli Bus Driver:

  I tried to get in. And they asked me for my I.D. He say he sees I'm from here, and he says: "You can't get in."

  I ask him why. He said, "I said nicely, you can't get in. One more time, I will take you next to the law."

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  He says, since Saturday's horrific Hamas attacks, suspicion is on the rise in the city.

• Taher Gibran:

  It was scary, the tension, so much tension.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  The Al-Aqsa compound, one of the holiest sites in Islam and set amid some of the holiest Jewish sites, has been a flash point for conflict in recent years, and retaliation for the Israel Defense Forces' repeated violent incursions into the site while Muslim worshipers pray is one of the stated goals of Hamas.

  There were altercations, and tear gas was fired by Israeli security forces today as worshipers left the mosque. But with only very young and elderly men inside, the expected clashes were avoided. But just outside, in the Arab Wadi Joz neighborhood, clashes did break out, as some young men refused to accept the ban.

  Jerusalem police shut off the neighborhood, firing tear gas and foul-smelling skunk water into residential streets as those residents watched on, unable to get home. A few hours later, calm was restored. But on the winding roads into the occupied West Bank, the fires of rage have been burning since morning.

  Major reinforcements to IDF checkpoints were brought in, with security forces on high alert and Palestinian towns and villages locked down, with no way in or out. By mid-afternoon, that rage had exploded.

  Protests have broken out in Palestinian towns across the West Bank today. We're in front of the city of Ramallah. We can hear behind us tear gas going off, smell the smoke in the air. We can hear sirens, people screaming. Inside, people are protesting. And this is where the Israeli Defense Forces have set up a barricade to stop Palestinians leaving the town.

  As we drive back to Jerusalem, smoke rises from almost every Palestinian town and village, tensions erupting behind locked doors. Later in the day, the violence follows us. Two teenage boys were killed in clashes with security forces this evening in the East Jerusalem village of Issawiya.

  Across this harrowed country, as rockets fall and guns fire, the drums of all-out war sound closer by the minute.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And Leila joins me once again here in Tel Aviv.

  Leila, good to see you.

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  Hi, Amna.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Let's start with what you didn't see in your reporting today.

  Many people here were bracing for much higher levels of violence than we saw here today. What did you hear from people you talked to about why we didn't see that violence here?

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  Well, we were in Jerusalem, where everyone expected the flash point of that violence to be around the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

  And what happened was that the security forces just imposed a ban on any men between 18 and 40. Some people even over 40 were banned from coming out. And we saw that. And that worked. There was a small group who tried to rush security forces, and they were pushed back.

  But other than that, people did back away. And that meant there wasn't very much violence. It's a sign that reflects on what I have been saying all week, which is that people are really scared in Jerusalem and the West Bank. They have seen what's happening in Gaza. They don't want that to happen to them.

  And it feeds into Israel's campaign, because, if they can separate Palestinians in Gaza and in Jerusalem and the West Bank from each other, then that helps them hugely, because they're fighting on two different groups of people, and they can perhaps convince people in the West Bank to remain calm.

  We will see how that goes, because, of course, later in the day, we did start to see more violence, people getting very angry as they were locked in those towns and villages. And this evening, we have had a lot of violence. You saw in the package there two young boys.

  The Palestinian Health Ministry has just confirmed with me, so far, 14 Palestinians have died today and 300 injured in those clashes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  It's not a peaceful day, by any stretch.

  In the meantime, we also saw news today of Israeli officials ordering the evacuation of over a million people in Gaza, we assume ahead of some kind of potential ground incursion. How do a million people move? What's the latest on this issue?

• Leila Molana-Allen:

  They try, but they don't, and certainly not in that amount of time.

  And the IDF did themselves acknowledge that. They said later, we understand this takes time. We didn't mean it had to be done within 24 hours. We're just trying to give a warning.

  And, of course, firstly, they're trying to protect themselves and say, we are trying to get civilians out. But the other thing that is a potential interesting possibility is, the solution here possibly is Egypt.

  There is this crossing where you could come out of Gaza into Egypt. Now, it has been bombed, but they could facilitate an evacuation through there. It's two million people. The population of Egypt is about 110 million. They could take these people. Politically, they don't want to. They don't want to take on the Palestinian cause right now.

  But if Israel is able to push down two million civilians onto that border, it would be incredibly difficult for Egypt refused to take any of them, if they are running from war, there are wounded women and children desperate on this border. So that's possibly a strategic calculation for the Israelis as well, that they're trying to create a flash point that Egypt cannot say no to and that receives a huge amount of international pressure.

  In the meantime, absolutely horrific scenes, roads bombed everywhere. How will people drive down them? They don't have fuel because of the siege that's happening. Nothing can go in or out. The hospitals already can't cope. The electricity is out across Gaza. They don't have generators to run their equipment.

  They're dealing with so many wounded people. If they have to evacuate the hospitals from half of the country — from half the Gaza Strip, and everyone has to go to the other area, that hospital is already overwhelmed, can't take any more. I have been getting desperate calls and messages from people all day: What do we do? My children, how can I get them out? How can we get there? Can anyone take us?

  Messages rocketing around everybody, just trying to find a way to evacuate, and they haven't got the support inside.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Leila Molana-Allen reporting again tonight, joining us here in Tel Aviv.

  Leila, thank you so much — Geoff, back to you.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Amna, thank you.