FLASH
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The Israeli military said Palestinians in Gaza City must flee south as its forces advance deeper into the enclave's largest urban area.
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 occupy it.
Netanyahu says Gaza City is a Hamas stronghold and its occupation is necessary to defeat the Palestinian Islamist militants, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war.
The attack threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have taken refuge there from nearly two years of fighting. Before the war, about a million people, nearly half of Gaza's population, lived in the city.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X that residents should leave the city for a designated coastal area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, assuring those fleeing that they would be able to obtain food, medical care, and shelter there.
On Thursday, the army announced it was in control of almost half of the city. It says it controls about 75% of all of Gaza. Many of those in Gaza City were displaced earlier in the war, only to return later. Some residents have said they refuse to be displaced again.
The army has been carrying out heavy attacks on the city for weeks, advancing through the outer suburbs and this week, forces were just a few kilometers from the city center.
According to Israeli officials, Netanyahu, backed by right-wing coalition allies, ordered the capture of Gaza City against the advice of Israel's military leadership. Despite the reluctance, the army has called up tens of thousands of reservists to support the operation.
The war in Gaza has left Israel increasingly isolated diplomatically, with some of its closest allies condemning the campaign that has devastated the small territory.
Palestinian militants took 251 hostages in the enclave after their cross-border attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people.
More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since then in Gaza, local health authorities say, with much of the enclave reduced to rubble and its residents facing a humanitarian crisis.
There are also growing calls within Israel, led by the hostages' families and their supporters, to end the war in a diplomatic deal that would secure the release of the remaining 48 captives.
Netanyahu is pushing forward an all-or-nothing deal, which would see all hostages released immediately and Hamas surrender.
Israeli military officials say they have killed many of Hamas' top leaders and thousands of its fighters, reducing the Palestinian militant group to a guerrilla force.
Hamas has offered to release some hostages for a temporary ceasefire, similar to the terms discussed in July before negotiations brokered by the US and Arab states failed.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington was in "very deep" negotiations with Palestinian militants.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but today controls only parts of the enclave, has long said it would release all hostages if Israel agrees to end the war and withdraw all its forces from Gaza.
Most of the hostages who have been freed were freed through diplomatic negotiations brokered by the United States and Arab states. Israel and Hamas have accused each other of negotiating in bad faith since the last talks broke down in July.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said that "military operations in Gaza will intensify until Hamas accepts Israel's conditions to end the war: the release of hostages and disarmament. Otherwise, the group will be destroyed."
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