1.1m Gazans given 24 hours to evacuate ahead of ground assault

Israel on Friday gave Palestinians 24 hours to leave Gaza City ahead of an expected ground offensive in retaliation against Hamas for the deadliest attack in Israeli history.

The United Nations said it had been informed of the evacuation order shortly before midnight Thursday, six days after hundreds of Hamas gunmen broke through the militarized border barrier around the Gaza enclave and killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, drawing comparisons to the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

The UN said the mass relocation, affecting 1.1 million or about half the entire population of the Gaza Strip, to the territory’s south was “impossible” and urgently appealed for the order to be rescinded.

Any Israeli ground operation is complicated by Hamas’s holding — according to Israel’s government — of around 150 Israeli, foreign and dual-national hostages.

Hamas on Friday said 13 hostages, including foreigners, had been killed in Israeli strikes. The terrorists had previously reported four hostages killed in strikes, and the latest deaths came at “five locations targeted by Israeli fighter jets,” they said.

Israel has retaliated by hitting targets in Gaza with thousands of munitions, in strikes claiming more than 1,530 lives — 500 of them children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The Israeli army confirmed Friday it had called on Gaza City residents to move “to the area south of the Wadi Gaza,” which is just below Gaza City in the 40 kilometer-long territory.

“In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians,” the army said. “Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent civilians.”

UN officials working in Gaza said earlier they were informed by the Israeli military that the evacuation should be carried out “within the next 24 hours.”

Agence France-Presse correspondents said there were “heavy strikes” in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning, including Al-Shati refugee camp and Gaza City, primarily targeting residential buildings.

The Hamas media office reported Israeli air raids on Khan Yunis and