Tens of thousands more Palestinians evacuated Gaza City over the past day, the Israeli military said on Saturday afternoon, bringing the total number of those who left the area in recent weeks to around 280,000, according to Israel Defense Forces estimates.

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency, however, reported a much lower figure, saying fewer than 70,000 had managed to leave.

“The actual number of displaced people from Gaza to the south is approximately 68,000 only,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Around one million Palestinians were estimated to be residing in Gaza City before the IDF began to prepare for its major offensive aimed at conquering the major city and defeating the remaining Hamas fighters and infrastructure in the area.

Earlier in the week, the IDF ordered all of Gaza City to evacuate immediately ahead of the planned offensive, and has continued dropping leaflets ordering residents of certain neighborhoods to urgently flee ahead of attacks.

Civilians have been instructed to head for an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” in the Strip’s south. The vast majority of Gaza’s roughly 2 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war there was sparked by the Hamas onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

عاجل| طيران الاحتلال يقصف برج النور السكني قرب وزارة التربية والتعليم في حي تل الهوا جنوب غربي مدينة غزة.

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The UN and aid groups have warned that displacing hundreds of thousands of people will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis. Sites in southern Gaza where Israel is telling people to go are often overcrowded, according to the UN, and it can cost money to move, which many people don’t have.

Leaflets dropped on Saturday read: “The Israeli army is operating with very intense force in your area and is determined to dismantle and defeat Hamas. For your safety, evacuate immediately via Al-Rashid Street to the south of Wadi Gaza. You have been warned.”

Shortly after issuing the warning, the IDF bombed a high-rise tower in the area, continuing its recent pattern of leveling tall buildings in Gaza City, which it says are used by Hamas for surveillance, as sniper posts, and to store weapons.

According to the military, Hamas placed military infrastructure in the building that it struck Saturday, adding that the terror group used it to advance attacks on IDF troops in the area.

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There were also reports of intense IDF strikes in Gaza City’s Shati camp, though there was no immediate comment from the military.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said Saturday that Israeli airstrikes killed at least 32 people across Gaza City since the morning. The figures could not be independently verified.

The dead included 12 children, according to the morgue in Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were brought.

One of the strikes overnight and into early morning Saturday hit a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, killing a family of 10, including a mother and her three children, according to health officials.

The Palestinian Football Association said a player for the Al-Helal Sporting Club, Mohammed Ramez Sultan, was killed in the strikes with 14 members of his family. Images showed the strikes hitting, followed by plumes of smoke.

The Hamas-run ministry also said Saturday that seven people, including children, died from malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, raising the unverified toll to 420, including 145 children, since the war began.

On Friday, the IDF said the air force struck over 500 targets in Gaza City over the previous week in five main waves, as part of preparations for an upcoming major ground offensive against Hamas in the area.

The first three waves focused on Gaza City’s Daraj, Tuffah and Sheikh Radwan neighborhoods. In recent days, the IDF said it had expanded its strikes to the Shati camp and additional areas in Sheikh Radwan.

The army recently called up tens of thousands of reservists in anticipation of a large-scale ground operation with the aim of conquering the city. The plan has received major pushback, both internationally and from within Israel, over the risk to Gaza’s civilian population as well as to the hostages still held by Hamas and other terror groups in the area.

Defense chiefs said to warn Gaza City op will ‘inevitably’ kill hostages

According to a Friday report by the Kan broadcaster, the heads of Israeli security agencies warned ministers during a meeting Friday morning that the planned takeover will “inevitably” lead to the killing of hostages.

The warning was more definitive than previous ones given by the security establishment about the Gaza City operation. In the past, the cabinet has warned that the operation could likely place the hostages being held there at risk.

The security chiefs also warned ministers that while the evacuation of Gaza City has gone relatively well thus far, hundreds of thousands of the one million people who were living in the area are likely to remain, as opposed to last year’s Rafah operation, where the IDF managed to clear out almost everyone ahead of time.

The security chiefs told cabinet members the large population expected to remain in Gaza City will become the responsibility of the IDF and troops will have to provide them with aid and other basic services, Kan reported.

Moreover, the security establishment warned that the Gaza City takeover will take much longer than currently anticipated. While Netanyahu says he has ordered the IDF to shrink the timeline for the operation, the security chiefs said it will likely take many months, and even then, it’s unclear whether the goals of the takeover will be met, Kan added.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 64,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 465. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.