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Israel has ordered the evacuation of a large swath of southern Gaza as it stepped up airstrikes on the enclave that have killed hundreds of people in the three days since the ceasefire with Hamas collapsed.
The evacuation order appeared to be a signal of Israeli preparations for an offensive against Hamas in and around Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city and now the largest population center in the south. Leaflets were dropped and text messages were sent warning of serious military activity.
Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Monday that the IDF had “entered a new phase” of the war and was “pursuing Hamas wherever Hamas is hiding – in the north and in the south.”
“Every rocket launcher, every weapons depot, every command and control center, every commander-in-chief, every underground infrastructure and every hideout where our hostages could be held,” he added.
Reports in the Israeli media and the Gaza Strip suggested that IDF troops stationed in the northern Gaza Strip had begun a tentative advance southward, just as the IDF said it would continue its offensive against remaining Hamas strongholds in the north. The IDF said airstrikes killed two commanders of a Hamas battalion in northern Gaza on Sunday.
The Israeli military operation in the south of the Gaza Strip would repeat an earlier operation against Hamas in the north of the enclave, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi suggested on Sunday.
“Just like us [fought against Hamas] “We are doing this strongly and thoroughly in northern Gaza, now we are doing it in southern Gaza too,” Halevi told IDF troops gathered outside the besieged Palestinian territory.
The escalated fighting came despite U.S. officials ranging from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Vice President Kamala Harris warning Israel to take more steps to protect civilians in Gaza. The U.S. pays up to a fifth of Israel’s defense budget – currently about $3.8 billion a year – under an Obama administration agreement.
“In a fight like this, the focus is on the civilian population. And when you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” Austin said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California over the weekend.
Asked Sunday about U.S. concerns, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said: “We completely agree that far too many people have been killed in this war.” It is a sad fact that everyone who has died since April 7 October was killed. . . would still be alive if Hamas had not decided to start this war.”
In response to Harris’ comments that the civilian death toll in Gaza was too high, Levy stressed that “the Israeli army has made every effort.” [in] We are complying with our obligations under international law to bring civilians out of danger.”
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Israel and Hamas returned to fighting as a week-long ceasefire between Qatar, Egypt and the United States collapsed on Friday.
The pause in hostilities allowed the release of about 100 Israeli women and children and foreigners held hostage by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. In return, Israel freed some 240 Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons and there was a renewed influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.
According to Palestinian officials, more than 15,520 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Israel estimates that Hamas killed 1,200 people in its Oct. 7 attack, when the group also took about 240 hostages.
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Palestinian officials said on Sunday that 316 people had been killed since hostilities resumed on Friday. But they also said that this only affected those who had been taken to hospitals and not those still lying under the rubble.
The United Nations said an airstrike on Saturday on a six-story building in a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip killed dozens of people after residents were given an hour and a half notice to evacuate the building.
Later on Saturday, a block in Gaza City was hit and 50 residential buildings were destroyed, the United Nations added. The number of casualties caused by this incident is not yet known.
After U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also expressed concerns about civilian casualties to the Israeli War Cabinet, the IDF made public plans to issue evacuation orders to the Palestinians for every neighborhood ahead of military operations.
But the United Nations, human rights groups and Palestinians said the orders were unworkable, especially with almost all of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million residents already crowded into the southern part of Gaza.
Israel has proposed a so-called security zone in the south of the Gaza Strip covering 14 square kilometers, but it has not yet been enforced. The area is slightly larger than London’s Heathrow Airport. UN officials have said that safe zones cannot be unilaterally declared in a war zone.
According to the IDF, along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, an anti-tank missile targeted an Israeli military vehicle and injured soldiers from shrapnel. The IDF retaliated with artillery.