Israeli army calls on Gaza residents to leave the city

The Israeli military said Palestinians in Gaza, the enclave's largest urban area, should move south, warning that military operations were taking place across the city.

Israeli forces have been conducting an offensive on the outskirts of the northern city for weeks, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to capture it, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu claims that Gaza is a Hamas stronghold and that capturing it is key to defeating the Palestinian Islamist militants, whose attack on Israel in October 2023 triggered the war.

The offensive threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been sheltering there for nearly two years of war. Before the conflict, the city was home to about a million people, nearly half of Gaza's total population, Reuters recalls.

Israeli military spokesman Avishai Adrai wrote on the X network that residents should leave the city and move to a designated coastal area of ​​Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, assuring those fleeing that they would be able to obtain food, medical assistance and shelter there.

The army said on Thursday it controls almost half of the city. It claims to hold about 75 percent of all of Gaza.

Many of those now in Gaza were previously displaced but later returned. Some residents say they refuse to be expelled again.

The army has been carrying out heavy strikes on the city for weeks, advancing through the outer suburbs, and this Sunday forces arrived within a few kilometers of the center.

Netanyahu, backed by right-wing coalition allies, ordered the takeover of Gaza despite opposition from the military leadership, Israeli officials said. Despite the hesitation, the army called up tens of thousands of reservists to support the operation.

The war in Gaza has increasingly left Israel diplomatically isolated, while even its closest allies have condemned it for a campaign that has devastated the small territory.

There are also growing calls within Israel, led by the families of the hostages and their supporters, to end the war with a diplomatic deal that would secure the release of the remaining 48 prisoners.

Israeli officials believe 20 hostages are still alive.

Netanyahu is insisting on an "all or nothing" deal, under which all hostages would be released at once and Hamas would surrender, according to Reuters.

Israeli military officials claim to have eliminated many key Hamas leaders and thousands of its fighters, turning the Palestinian militant group into a guerrilla force.

Hamas has offered to release some hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, similar to terms discussed in July before talks, brokered by the US and Arab states, collapsed.

The group, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but now controls only part of the territory, has long said it would release all hostages if Israel agreed to end the war and withdraw all its forces from Gaza.

Most of the hostages released so far have been released through diplomatic negotiations brokered by the United States and Arab countries. The last talks broke down in July, with Israel and Hamas accusing each other of negotiating in bad faith.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that military operations in Gaza will be stepped up until Hamas accepts Israel's conditions for ending the war: the release of hostages and disarmament. Otherwise, the group will be destroyed, he said.