The Israeli army dropped thousands of leaflets over Gaza City on Wednesday urging all residents to leave, an AFP journalist reported, as the military intensified its assault on the Palestinian territory’s main city.
The leaflets, addressed to “all residents of Gaza City,” showed routes out of the city to designated safe areas in the south and warned that the urban area “remains a dangerous war zone” while the army attacks Hamas targets.
Israel issued its first formal evacuation order for a section of the city on 27 June, and issued two more over the next few days.
Distributing leaflets, the army said residents would be able to travel through two secure roads “quickly and without inspection from Gaza City to shelters in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawiya.”
Following the October 7 Hamas attacks, Israel said in January it had “destroyed” the group’s “military infrastructure” in the northern city.
Thousands of residents have fled Gaza City since troops launched the latest offensive in the city’s eastern Shuja’iya district and ground fighting has continued since then.
The two latest orders cover the central and western districts, where tanks and troops were deployed this week.
The army also said its forces had attacked activists inside the vacated headquarters of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians in Gaza City.
The attacks have also affected Deir al-Balah, where Palestinians have been urged to move to safety.
The United Nations on Tuesday expressed concern over Israeli evacuation orders, saying they are asking Palestinians to move to areas where fighting is ongoing.
Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, 42 of whom the military says are dead.
Israeli military offensive has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
