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Israeli airstrikes and demolitions have destroyed dozens of buildings in areas of Gaza City, with intense bombardments having levelled several neighbourhoods in recent weeks.
Israel has bombed Gaza City residential high-rises in recent days ahead of a long-threatened ground offensive.
Gaza City residents are being told to move to the southern part of the territory to areas that are under frequent Israeli bombardment and are already overcrowded.
The UN, for example, has said the tent camps in al-Mawasi, an area between southern Gaza’s Khan Younis and the coastline, are overcrowded and unsafe, with southern hospitals overwhelmed and undersupplied.
A view of the destruction caused after the Israeli army targeted a 7-story building known as the Al-Roya Tower with an airstrike in Gaza City. Photograph: APAImages/Shutterstock
As my colleague William Christou notes in this story, tens of thousands of people have already left the city as Israel has stepped up its bombardment, and the roads leading south have been packed with residents carrying their belongings in carts and trucks.
Gaza City is being gripped by famine caused by Israel’s restrictions on aid and the expanded assault will only deepen the widespread suffering of the civilian population there and could forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people, many of whom are ill or frail.
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The Israeli military warned on social media on Tuesday that it would act with “greater force” in Gaza City and told residents to leave.
“To all residents of Gaza City … the defence forces are determined to defeat Hamas and will act with greater force in the Gaza City area,” Colonel Avichay Adraee said in the post on X.
Evacuate immediately via the Al-Rashid axis.
Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, also said: “Your remaining in the city is extremely dangerous.”
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Updated at 08.14 CEST
The Israeli military’s order for a large-scale evacuation of Gaza City on Tuesday morning is the first warning for a full evacuation of Gaza’s capital in the current round of fighting.
Also on Tuesday, the AP reported, defence minister Israel Katz said Israel had demolished 30 high-rise buildings in Gaza, which it accused Hamas of using for military infrastructure.
As just reported, Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel planned to destroy at least 50 “towers of terror” that he said were used by Hamas.
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Updated at 08.03 CEST
Here’s footage of Benjamin Netanyahu warning residents of Gaza City on Monday to “leave now”, hours after Israel said it would escalate airstrikes on the territory.
It came as Gaza’s health ministry said hospitals had received the bodies of 65 people killed by Israeli fire over the past 24 hours, with another 320 people wounded.
The Israeli prime minister says in his address that over the past couple of days the Israeli air force has taken down 50 “terrors towers” and “this is only an introduction” to a “powerful main act, which is a ground manoeuvre of our forces which are now assembling and organising, into Gaza City”.
Netanyahu also said, addressing “the residents of Gaza”: “you have been warned: leave now”.
The footage is here:
Netanyahu tells Gaza City residents to leave as Israeli forces prepare for ground manoeuvre – videoShare
Updated at 07.59 CEST
Israel’s large-scale evacuation order for Gaza City residents comes as mediation efforts by the US, Qatar and Egypt have failed to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas in order to secure a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages Hamas holds in Gaza.
Israel had already taken control of 75% of Gaza since the war began with Hamas’ October 2023 assault on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken as hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli authorities say 20 of the remaining 48 hostages in Gaza are alive, as Reuters reports.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s health ministry says, as well as internally displacing nearly the entire population and leaving much of the territory in ruins.
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Updated at 08.19 CEST
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Israel’s military has ordered Gaza City residents to evacuate ahead of a new offensive to seize the territory’s largest urban centre, part of a planned takeover stirring international alarm.
Taking over the city of 1 million Palestinians complicates ceasefire efforts to end the nearly two-year war. On Monday, Benjamin Netanyahu warned residents of Gaza City to leave immediately, hours after Israel said it would ramp up airstrikes. The Israeli prime minister said forces were now organising and assembling into Gaza City for a ground “manoeuvre”.
International critics say Israel’s plan – which includes demilitarising the whole strip as Israel takes security control of it – could deepen the humanitarian plight of the 2.2 million people living there, who are also facing a growing famine.
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Updated at 07.35 CEST
