The Israeli military has called on all Palestinians to leave Gaza City and head south, and is launching a new offensive in the north, south and center of the area that has killed dozens of people in the past 48 hours.
The increased military activity came as American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators met with Israeli officials in the Qatari capital Doha. The aim of the talks was to broker a long-unfinished ceasefire agreement with the militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of dozens of Israeli hostages held by Hamas there.
Israel says it is pursuing Hamas fighters who have been regrouping in different parts of Gaza since the nine-month war.
But the heavy attacks in recent days across the entire area could also be aimed at putting greater pressure on Hamas in the ceasefire talks.
During a visit to central Gaza on Wednesday, Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said the armed forces were deployed in different ways in several parts of the territory “to carry out a very important mission: to exert pressure. We will continue to operate to bring the hostages home.”
Israel informed people in Gaza of the evacuation order by dropping leaflets urging “everyone in Gaza City” to take two “safe routes” south to the area around the central city of Deir al-Balah.
It said Gaza City – the enclave’s largest city – would “remain a dangerous fighting zone.”
Months ago, Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to flee south, and much of the population has already left the area during the war.
Large parts of Gaza City and the surrounding urban areas have been razed to the ground or left a devastated landscape by previous Israeli attacks.
According to the United Nations, there are still about 300,000 Palestinians in the hard-hit north, the majority of them in Gaza City.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are crowded into squalid tent camps in the centre and south of the Gaza Strip.
In recent days, Israeli troops have entered parts of Gaza City, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee artillery fire and air strikes.
Last week, the military ordered Palestinians to leave the eastern and central parts of the city.
The Israeli army said on Wednesday it had completed an operation it began late last month in the Gaza neighborhood of Shijaiyah, killing dozens of militants and destroying eight underground tunnels.
In the nine months of its bombardment and offensives in the Gaza Strip, Israel has killed more than 38,200 people and injured over 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Almost the entire population was driven from their homes, and many were resettled several times.
In the attack on October 7, militants killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
The militants took about 250 people hostage.
About 120 of them are still in captivity, and about a third are said to be dead.