During a visit to Gaza City on Wednesday, the IDF’s Chief of Staff Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said it was “operating in the Gaza Strip with a large number of troops, with a focus on striking Gaza City to create conditions for the release of the hostages and for Hamas’ decisive defeat”.
The general also stated that “most of Gaza’s population has already left Gaza City, and we are moving them southward for their safety”.
“I call on Gazan residents: rise up and break away from Hamas – it is responsible for your suffering. The war and the suffering will end if Hamas releases the hostages and relinquishes its weapons,” he added.
Hamas’s military wing warned the IDF that expanding its operations in Gaza City would endanger the 48 remaining hostages, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Israeli media cited the IDF as saying that about 700,000 residents had so far evacuated to southern Gaza since the plans for the offensive were announced last month.
However, the UN and its humanitarian partners said they had only monitored 339,600 people crossing into the south as of Tuesday.
They have also previously warned that the Israeli-designated “humanitarian area” for the displaced in al-Mawasi is already overcrowded and unsafe.
Gaza City resident Thaer Saqr said he had attempted to travel south from the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood on Tuesday with his wife, children and sister.
“The tanks on the coastal road… opened fire on us, and my sister was killed,” he told AFP.
He said they were now at al-Shifa hospital and would “not leave, even if they kill us all”.
On Tuesday, the UN’s human rights office decried the IDF’s tactics in Gaza City, saying there had been a sharp increase in the number of civilians being killed in Israeli attacks and that the targeting of civilian infrastructure and destruction of homes was “making it likely that the displacement will be permanent”.
It also criticised Israeli authorities, including Defence Minister Israel Katz, for threatening to destroy Gaza City if Hamas did not comply with Israel’s demands.
“Such tactics and statements seem intended to inflict terror and fear amongst civilians and to force them to leave northern Gaza,” it warned.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 65,419 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.