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The Israeli military has said Gaza City residents must not delay their departure before an expected ground offensive starts, as people leaving the north of the territory jammed roads south.
Key points:
- An Israeli military spokesperson said there is a six-hour safe passage "window" for Gaza residents to evacuate
- Israel faced calls from international organisations to delay an expected full offensive to give civilians time to leave
- The Israeli military indicated that Gaza City will be the focus of its operations because this is the base for the Hamas leadership
Israel has designated two safe routes for more than one million residents of northern Gaza to leave for the south of the blockaded territory.
Military spokesman Richard Hecht said there is a safe passage "window" between 10am (6pm Saturday AEDT) and 4pm (12am Sunday AEDT) on the roads, down the Gaza coast and through the centre of the narrow Palestinian territory, which is about 40 kilometres long.
There was no immediate announcement from either side of any change in the situation as the deadline expired.
Without saying how many days the window would remain, Mr Hecht told reporters: "We know this is going to take time but we recommend people not to delay."
Troops were massing around the Gaza Strip, "getting ready for the next stage of operations", Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society also received an order from Israeli forces on Saturday with a new deadline to evacuate its Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City by 4pm local time, according to a statement.
However, the association said they cannot evacuate the hospital and it is obliged under a humanitarian mandate to continue providing services to the sick and wounded, the statement added.
Thousands of Gazans packed buses, cars and donkey carts on Saturday to escape the northern zone, where the bulk of Israeli air and artillery strikes have occurred.
Israel has faced calls from the United Nations, United States and European Union to delay an expected full offensive to give civilians time to leave.
The Israeli military has indicated that Gaza City will be the focus of its operations because this is the base for the Hamas leadership that it blames for the attacks last week that left at least 1,300 dead in Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that over 2,200 people have been killed in the territory, including 724 children and 458 women.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the situation in Gaza as "a dangerous new low".
"Even wars have rules," he added, as Israel faced accusations of collectively punishing Gazans for Hamas's action last week.
"Civilians must be protected and also never used as shields," Mr Guterres said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza, while clashes in the occupied West Bank have killed 53 Palestinians in the past week.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokeswoman Tal Heinrich told AFP: "Everything that happens in Gaza is Hamas's responsibility."
Lebanon border clashes
The violence in Gaza has been accompanied by the deadliest clashes at Israel's northern border with Lebanon since 2006, raising fears of war spreading to another front.
Lebanon's armed Hezbollah movement, a close ally of Iran like Hamas, said it had fired at five Israeli outposts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area with guided missiles and mortar bombs.
Hezbollah "attacked Zionist positions in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms … with guided missiles and mortar shells, hitting them," the Shiite group said in a statement.
Reuters saw missiles fired at an Israeli army post and heard shelling from Israel and gunfire.
On Friday, Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah was killed in a missile strike on the Lebanese side of the border.
Lebanon's army said the missile was launched by Israel. The Israeli military said it was investigating what happened.
Hezbollah and other Palestinian factions in Lebanon have exchanged cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on Israel.
LoadingAFP/Reuters