The armed group Hamas called on residents of the Gaza Strip not to leave their homes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned civilians to leave.
“Stay firm in your homes and stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war carried out by the occupation,” reads the statement from the Hamas Refugee Affairs Authority, quoted by Aljazeera.
The note comes after Israel advised all Palestinians to leave northern Gaza within 24 hours. A forced displacement of around 1.1 million people.
Israel has massed forces near the Gaza Strip in a sign of a ground offensive, after bombing territory controlled by the Islamist group Hamas in recent days.
The escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was provoked by Hamas, which on Saturday carried out an unprecedented incursion into Israel, killing civilians and soldiers and taking more than a hundred hostages, taken to the Gaza Strip.
Since then, the conflict has caused more than 1,300 deaths on the Israeli side and around 1,400 on the Palestinian side.
Source: TSF
