Israel says 250,000 Palestinians left Gaza City amid offensive

At least 39 people have died since Saturday morning in Israeli military attacks in Gaza City and other parts of the coastal strip, Palestinian medical sources reported on Saturday.

Israel has intensified its attacks, particularly on Gaza City, said Mahmud Basal, the spokesman for the Hamas-controlled civil defence.

In early August, Israel announced that its military planned to take control of the entire city to target Hamas units believed to be operating there.

Around 1 million people were previously believed to be in the city, some of whom had fled there from other parts of Gaza.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee on Saturday again called on all residents of Gaza City to flee immediately to so-called humanitarian zones further south.

Adraee wrote on X that an estimated 250,000 people had left the city.

Separately, the Hamas-run media office in the Gaza Strip estimated that the number of people that had fled to nominally safer areas had risen to 350,000, up from an earlier report of around 65,000.

None of these figures, or other information from the conflict zone, could be independently verified at the time.

In a later post on X, the spokesman also called on residents of a high-rise building and surrounding tents to flee immediately, as Israeli forces were preparing to attack Hamas "military infrastructure" there.

Shortly afterwards, the military said the building had been hit.

Although the city's internet is barely working after Israeli forces destroyed many buildings with transmission masts, Adraee's appeals were spreading quickly.

They can also be received on mobile phones with Israeli SIM cards.

Despite the danger to their lives, many do not want to move to central safe zones designated by Israel and al-Mawasi in the south-west, as Israel has attacked such zones in the past.