The Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people. (File)
Gaza City:
The Israeli army on Wednesday dropped thousands of leaflets in Gaza City urging all residents to leave amid an intensified military offensive in the Palestinian territory’s main city, an AFP journalist said.
The pamphlets, addressed to “everyone in Gaza City,” lay out routes out of the city to designated safe areas further south and warn that the urban area “will continue to be a dangerous combat zone” as long as the army strikes Hamas targets.
Israel issued a first formal evacuation order for part of the city on June 27, and two more in the following days.
In the pamphlet, the army said residents could take two safe roads “quickly and without inspection, from Gaza City to shelters in Deir Al-Balah and Al-Zawiya.”
Following the Hamas attacks on October 7, Israel said in January that it had “dismantled” the group’s “military structure” in the northern city.
Tens of thousands of residents have already fled Gaza City since troops launched the latest offensive in the city’s eastern Shujaiya district, and ground battles have erupted since then.
The last two orders covered central and western districts where tanks and troops moved this week.
The army also said its forces attacked agents inside the unoccupied headquarters of the UN agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA, in Gaza City.
The attacks also hit Deir Al-Balah, an area where Palestinians have been urged to move for safety.
The United Nations on Tuesday expressed alarm at Israel’s evacuation orders, saying they tell Palestinians to go to areas where there is fighting.
Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on Israeli figures.
Agents also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 who the military says are dead.
Israel’s military offensive killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data released Tuesday by the Ministry of Health in the territory administered by Hamas.
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