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GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The Israeli military warned on Friday it will operate with “unprecedented force” in Gaza City, urging residents to flee southwards while announcing the closure of a temporary evacuation route opened 48 hours earlier.

Israel’s bid to capture Gaza City has sparked international outrage, with the territory already devastated by nearly two years of war and gripped by a UN-declared famine.

It comes ahead of a planned move by several Western countries, including France and Britain, to recognize a Palestinian state next week at a UN summit.

The United Nations estimated at the end of August that about one million people were living in Gaza City and its surroundings. Israel says hundreds of thousands of them have fled the Gaza Strip’s largest city.

In a post on X addressing residents of Gaza City, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said: “From this moment, Salah Al-Din Road is closed for southbound travel. The Israel Defense Forces will continue to operate with unprecedented force against Hamas and other terrorist organizations.”

He added the only possible route south was via Al-Rashid street and urged residents to “take this opportunity and join the hundreds of thousands of city residents who have moved south to the humanitarian area.”

Israel on Wednesday announced a “temporary” new route for residents to flee Gaza City, after it launched an intense ground offensive and massive bombardment of the Palestinian territory’s main city after nearly two years of devastating war.

The military had said the transportation route via Salah Al-Din street would remain open for just 48 hours from midday (0900 GMT).

Salah Al-Din street is the main north-south road through the Gaza Strip.

The US-backed offensive on Gaza City began on Tuesday and came as a United Nations probe accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials had incited the crime.

Israel rejected the findings and slammed it as “distorted and false.”

‘We have lost everything’

AFP footage from the Al-Rashid coastal road on Thursday showed long lines of Palestinians heading south on foot or in vehicles piled high with meagre belongings.

In western Gaza City on Friday, displaced Palestinian Sami Baroud described “relentless and intense shelling.”

“Our life has become nothing but explosions and danger,” the 35-year-old told AFP by telephone.

“We have lost everything – our lives, our future, our sense of safety. How can I evacuate when I can’t even afford transportation?”

Umm Mohammed Al-Hattab, 49, also said her family had nowhere to go and couldn’t afford the cost of moving.

“My seven children and I are still living in tents in western Gaza City after (Israel) bombed our home,” she said.

“The bombing hasn’t stopped, and at any moment, we expect a missile to fall on us. My children are terrified, and I don’t know what to do,” she said.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 65,141 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

DUBAI/BAGHDAD: Iraq’s attempt to ease its chronic power shortage with gas from Turkmenistan routed through neighboring Iran has failed under US pressure, leaving Baghdad scrambling for alternatives to keep the lights on.
Oil-rich Iraq has struggled to provide its citizens with power since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, forcing many to rely on expensive private generators, causing economic hardship and sparking social unrest.
Hussain Saad, a 43-year-old owner of a butcher shop in the Kasra neighborhood of Baghdad, is struggling to protect his livelihood and keep his meat from spoiling in the scorching heat.
“This isn’t just my suffering — it’s the suffering of the entire Iraqi people,” he said.
A deal first proposed in 2023 would have seen Turkmenistan export gas to Iraq through Iran, which lies between the two countries. Under the swap deal, Iran would receive the gas and supply it to Iraq, but this risked violating US sanctions on Tehran — requiring Washington’s approval.
That approval never came. US President Trump’s administration has doubled down on a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO ALLIES
Reuters spoke to four Iraqi officials and reviewed seven official documents to reveal how Baghdad had sought Washington’s approval for months to let it import roughly 5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas via Iran.
Iraq sought to import 5.025 bcm of Turkmen gas a year, facilitated via Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), according to a draft contract of the swap deal seen by Reuters.
Iran would receive no money, but would get gas for its own needs amounting to no more than 23 percent of the overall daily volume coming from Turkmenistan, a document showed.
Baghdad also offered to allow a third-party international monitor to oversee the deal’s compliance with US sanctions and anti-money laundering rules, the same document showed.
But despite months of lobbying, US objections ultimately scuppered the deal as Washington ramps up pressure on Iran over its nuclear plans.
That has left Baghdad facing an increasingly difficult balancing act between its main allies in Washington and Tehran.
“Proceeding (with the Turkmen deal) could trigger sanctions on Iraqi banks and financial institutions, so the contract is currently suspended,” Adel Karim, adviser to Iraq’s prime minister for electricity affairs, told Reuters.
The US Treasury declined to comment but a US source familiar with the matter said the Trump administration would not approve arrangements that could benefit Iran, though it was working with Iraq on its energy needs.
The Iranian government, oil ministry, NIGC and Turkmen foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
IRAQ’S RELIANCE ON IRANIAN GAS
Iraq has relied on gas and power imports from Iran for the past decade. Iranian gas covers nearly a third of Iraq’s power generation and in 2024 gas imports reached 9.5 bcm, said an Iraqi power official, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“If we lose Iranian gas, we’ll face a serious problem in electricity generation,” Karim said.
Although Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, it burns off much of the gas it produces alongside oil due to under-investment and lack of infrastructure to capture and process it.
The country extracted just 11 bcm of gas in 2023 that could be used for power or industrial needs, according to the IEA. Iraq’s gas needs vary seasonally, with demand surging in summer to around 45 million cubic meters (mcm) per day, Karim said, otherwise dropping to 10–20 mcm per day.
SANCTIONS SCUPPER TURKMEN DEAL
In March, the Trump administration ended a sanctions waiver that since 2018 had allowed Iraq to pay for Iranian power, curtailing imports.
The lack of gas supplies from Iran led to a loss of about 3,000 megawatts of power generation since the waivers ended and peak summer demand set in — more than 10 percent of Iraq’s roughly 28,000 megawatts of total capacity, Karim said, enough to impact around 2.5 million homes according to Iraqi electricity officials.
Baghdad hoped to diversify its supply and avoid the risk of breaching sanctions with the Turkmen deal, sources said and documents showed.
Failing to secure that deal could jeopardize Baghdad’s ability to sustain gas plants during peak summer demand, Iraq’s electricity ministry warned in a letter to state-owned Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) on May 27, three months prior to a nationwide blackout in August.
DIVERSIFICATION THROUGH LNG, QATAR
With the Turkmen route blocked, Iraq is exploring alternatives to plug its power needs gap, including building infrastructure to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar.
Hamza Abdul Baqi, head of the state-owned South Gas Company, told Reuters in March that Iraq would lease a floating LNG terminal to handle Qatari and Omani gas. The government had tasked the oil ministry with finding alternatives to Iranian gas in case the US decided to restrict it, he said.
The country has also signed deals with global oil majors such as TotalEnergies, BP and Chevron over the past two years to speed up its gas projects.
French oil major TotalEnergies said this week it has launched the second development phase at Iraq’s Ratawi field, the final stages of a $27 billion project that aims to boost Iraq’s oil, gas and power production.
Britain’s BP said in March it has received final government approval for the redevelopment of Iraq’s giant Kirkuk oilfields, with an initial plan to produce 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
“We’re expanding our gas-fired power plants,” Karim said. “We’ll need more gas and more sources.”