The Israeli military said on Saturday that more than 250,000 people have fled Gaza City in recent weeks as its assault on the territory’s largest urban centre intensified.
“According to IDF (military) estimates, more than a quarter of a million residents of Gaza City have moved out of the city for their own safety,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee wrote on X.
The United Nations, by contrast, places the population of Gaza City and its surrounding areas at about one million people, underscoring the scale of displacement if the military’s figure is accurate.
Strict media restrictions inside Gaza and limited access to many frontline areas mean AFP and other outlets cannot independently verify the numbers or casualty tolls reported by the Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency.
On Saturday the Israeli military also dropped leaflets over western districts of Gaza City, telling residents to leave immediately as strikes continued.
The leaflet stated, “The Israeli army is operating with very intense force in your area and is determined to dismantle and defeat Hamas,” and added: “For your safety, evacuate immediately via Al-Rashid Street to the south of Wadi Gaza. You have been warned.”
Israel says it is committed to uprooting Hamas from what it calls one of the group’s remaining strongholds and has stepped up attacks on high-rise buildings it says are being used by militants.
The campaign has drawn growing international concern over the humanitarian impact.
The United Nations and foreign governments have warned that the offensive risks deepening an already catastrophic situation in Gaza City, where the UN has declared a famine.
Palestinian emergency services reported fresh fatalities on Saturday: the civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed five people since dawn, and it had recorded at least 50 deaths across the territory on Friday.
Inside Gaza, residents described life under near-constant bombardment. “Every night we go to sleep not knowing if we will wake up alive,” Gaza City resident Umm Anas al-Ashqar told AFP.
“The bombing around us never stops… We stayed in our house because we have nowhere else to go… This is not life. Death would be easier than this.”
