Israeli Defense Forces have warned that Gaza City is about to become a “dangerous combat zone,” as it seeks to continue the deadly war against Hamas. IDF has also urged “everyone” to leave the Palestinian city as the Israeli military intensified combat operations in the enclave.

The operations were said to include a raid on a United Nations refugee agency compound that it claimed was being used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters.

The IDF has instructed all remaining residents of Gaza City to flee south towards Deir al-Balah as Israeli troops carried out operations in its western, southern, and eastern neighborhoods, according to the Times of Israel, as reported by RT. Around 200,000 Palestinians remain in the northern part of the enclave, the newspaper said, quoting IDF estimates.

Israeli planes have dropped leaflets, urging “everyone in Gaza City” to leave because the area “will be a dangerous combat zone.” The flyers outlined two “safe routes” for evacuation and an instruction to head south. “Aid workers are responding but what they can deliver falls far short of the needs,” UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Muhannad Hadi wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday after a trip to Gaza.

Addressing the Knesset on Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the IDF’s actions during the war have “led to the elimination of over 14,000 terrorists and the collapse of the military frameworks of Hamas.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) warned that the latest set of Israeli evacuation orders will exacerbate the already dire situation in Gaza, where the vast majority of the population has been displaced since the start of the war in October. The directive “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced again and again,” the agency said. It warned that the repeated displacement of Palestinians makes the work of relief groups more difficult because they are forced to “reset their aid operations over and over again.” -RT

This move is obviously going to exacerbate the already tense situation in the Middle East.