Palestinians celebrate the funerals of people killed in Israeli strikes, Sep. 6, 2025. (Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)
The Israeli army called on residents of Gaza City on Saturday morning to evacuate to a zone declared “humanitarian” further south, ahead of a planned ground assault on the city, the largest in the Palestinian territory, which has been devastated by nearly 23 months of war. Colonel Avichay Adraee, the army’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, issued the call on social media as the U.N., which estimates around one million residents in the area, warned of an impending “disaster” if the offensive on Gaza City expands.
The Israeli army, which says it controls about 75 percent of the Gaza Strip and 40 percent of Gaza City, claims it wants to seize the city to defeat Hamas and free hostages still held by the group. The evacuation call comes after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States was “in deep negotiations with Hamas,” whose unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war. “We are telling them: release them [the hostages] all immediately,” Trump said, adding that otherwise “it will be terrible.” He also suggested that some hostages may have “recently died.” The Israeli army currently estimates that 25 of the 47 remaining captives in Gaza — out of 251 taken on Oct. 7 —are dead.
The Palestinian Islamist movement had agreed in August to a truce and hostage release proposal presented by mediators from Egypt, the United States, and Qatar. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government demands that Hamas disarm and says it wants to take full security control of the Gaza Strip.
‘The army is lying’
In his message, Colonel Adraee specified that to “facilitate the departure of the city’s residents,” the coastal Al-Mawasi sector in the south of the territory has been declared a “humanitarian zone.” According to the army, the zone includes “essential humanitarian infrastructure” and is supplied with “food, tents, medicine, and medical equipment.”
Since the start of the war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip — now facing famine over 20 percent of its territory according to the U.N. — the army has frequently bombed areas declared “humanitarian” or “safe,” claiming it was targeting Hamas fighters there. “The army is lying to people; when we go for aid… they open fire,” said Abdelnasser Muchtaha, 48, displaced to western Gaza City after leaving his shelled Zeitoun neighborhood. He said he intends to “stay for now.”
Already displaced to Al-Mawasi with his family, Bassam al-Astal, 52, said the zone is “neither humanitarian nor safe.” “This is where most of the martyrs fall every day. There is no room for tents, no humanitarian services, no water, no sanitation, no food aid,” he said.
On Friday, the Israeli army intensified its operations in Gaza City, bombing a tower in the city center after issuing an evacuation call. The building collapsed like a house of cards. According to the army, Hamas had installed “infrastructure” there to “prepare and conduct attacks” against Israeli forces. Israel had previously warned it would target “terrorist infrastructure” in the coming days, particularly in high-rise buildings. Hamas rejected Israel’s claims as “false pretexts and blatant lies,” denying the use of civilian buildings for military purposes.
‘Diabolical propaganda’
The Civil Defense of the Palestinian territory, under Hamas control since 2007, reported that 42 people were killed by Israeli fire or airstrikes on Friday, half of them in Gaza City. Due to restrictions on media access in Gaza and difficulties reaching the area, AFP is unable to independently verify Civil Defense figures.
Meanwhile, Hamas released a video showing two hostages — Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel — at the time their families and supporters were mobilizing across Israel to mark 700 days of captivity and demand their return. The footage shows Gilboa-Dalal asking Netanyahu not to launch an offensive on Gaza City. “No diabolical propaganda video will weaken us or blunt our determination,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said, after speaking with the families of the two men, according to his office.
The Oct. 7 attack killed 1,219 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to AFP’s count based on official sources. Israeli reprisals have killed at least 64,300 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, figures deemed reliable by the U.N.
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