A spokesman for the army said on Monday on platform X, previously Twitter, that the army will offer a four-hour window on a specific road to the south, accompanied by a map. The spokesperson urged people to flee to the south as soon as possible for their own protection.
The military expanded its ground operations in the fight against Hamas, which administers the Gaza Strip, about a week ago. The army said on Sunday night that it has split the enclave and that there is now “a northern Gaza and a southern Gaza.”
The army of Israel has regularly urged civilians in the north to escape to the south. According to the military, around 700,000 individuals have already evacuated. According to the UN, there are around 1.4 million internally displaced persons.
In total, more than 2.2 million people live in the densely populated Gaza Strip. The Israeli military is currently fighting Hamas mainly in the north, however, there have also been Israeli airstrikes in the south. The south is not a “safe zone” but is safer “than any other place in Gaza,” an army spokesperson said last week.
The current fighting started after the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement launched a terrorist attack from the Gaza Strip against Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 mainly civilians and taking some 240 people hostage.
Israel then launched a retaliatory bombing campaign to eliminate Hamas that has killed at least 9,770 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry there.
