Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his week-long blitz on Gaza in retaliation for the deadly Hamas attack is ‘only the beginning’.
His military ordered more than a million people living in Gaza City to flee south on Friday ahead of a widely-anticipated ground invasion.
‘This is just the beginning,’ Netanyahu said in a televised address. ‘We will destroy Hamas.’
It came as the Israeli army said on Friday that troops have already been conducting raids inside the enclave to battle militants, destroy weapons and search for evidence of missing hostages.
The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency warned Gaza was ‘becoming a hellhole’ and was on the ‘brink of collapse’.
One hospital there was given ‘just two hours to evacuate’, a humanitarian organisation said.
Médecins Sans Frontières International said Al Awda Hospital has been told to evacuate staff and patients.
Hamas said 70 people, mostly women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on convoys fleeing Gaza City on Friday.
The war has claimed at least 2,800 lives on both sides since Hamas launched an incursion on Oct. 7.
Follow live coverage of the conflict below.