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The Israeli army on Friday ordered the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City ahead of its feared ground offensive. The order came following the United Nations said it had received an Israeli warning to remove 1.1 million residents in the northern Strip within 24 hours.

Suffering in Gaza has increased dramatically: Palestinians are desperate for food, fuel and medicine, and their only power plant has had to close due to lack of fuel. The morgue of the largest hospital in the territory was overflowing as the bodies arrived faster than the relatives to claim them.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is scheduled to visit the area on Friday, a day following Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The war has claimed at least 2,800 lives on both sides since Hamas launched an incursion into Israeli soil on October 7.

Here’s a look at what’s happening on the seventh day of the latest war between Israelis and Palestinians:

JERUSALEM — Hamas on Friday called on Palestinians to stay in their homes following Israel issued an evacuation order for northern Gaza.

The Hamas Authority for Refugee Affairs told residents in the north of the territory to “stay in their homes and stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war waged by the occupation.”

Israel has ordered the evacuation of the northern enclave, including Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of people reside. Palestinians can only go to the south of the territory, which is just 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, as Israel has completely sealed it off.

Israel’s military says it will operate with “significant force” in Gaza in the coming days and has called on civilians to evacuate the besieged territory so it can attack Hamas insurgents, a spokesman said Friday.

The warning came as half of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza were trying to make sense of the order to move south of the small enclave, which is just 40 kilometers (25 miles) long. This unprecedented order includes Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of people live.

According to the spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, the army “will make great efforts to avoid harming the civilian population.”

“It is understood that there are civilians here who are not our enemies and we do not want to attack them, so we ask them to evacuate,” he added.

ISRAEL — Residents in the northern Gaza Strip said city streets and refugee camps were completely empty as people stayed home trying to decide what to do.

There were no cars circulating, except ambulances. Due to internet outages and the collapse of mobile phone networks, Palestinians noted that information was scarce and that most had not received direct orders from the army to evacuate the area. But panic slowly spread as personnel from United Nations agencies and other international organizations present in the area learned from their superiors that the immediate departure of the population to the south had been ordered, although no reports were made. the opening of humanitarian corridors.

ISRAEL — Residents in northern Gaza woke up in panic on Friday following its 1.1 million residents, including hundreds of thousands in Gaza City, were ordered to evacuate the area to the south.

“This is chaos, no one knows what to do,” said Inas Hamdan, an official with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City as she stuffed everything she might into her bags amid panicked screams. of their relatives.

The UN has asked all its staff in the city and in the north of the Strip to leave for Rafah in the south, he added.

“Forget regarding food, forget regarding electricity, forget regarding fuel, the only worry now if you are going to survive, if you are going to live,” said Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza City, breaking down into tears. He stated that it is not possible to safely evacuate 1.2 million people.

Imad Abu Alaa, UNRWA official in charge of shelters in northern Gaza, stressed that there are so many people that an evacuation at such short notice would not work. “What happens to the UN shelters? We are talking regarding civilians. Suddenly that doesn’t even matter?,” he added.

Farsakh said there are patients in hospitals who cannot be transferred under the current conditions and many doctors refuse to mark themselves and leave the sick behind. Instead, he added, they are calling their colleagues to say goodbye.

CAIRO — Half an hour following the mass evacuation order in Gaza, veteran Egyptian politician Mustafa Bakri accused Israel of trying to expel Palestinians to Egypt.

“It seems that this warning foresees an imminent ground aggression and the forced displacement of the population of the Gaza Strip towards the border with Egypt, so that they can eliminate the dream of establishing a Palestinian state,” Bakri wrote on X, the social network before known as Twitter.

Cash-strapped Egypt fears a massive influx of migrants across its eastern border and has called for international aid to be channeled through its Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli army on Friday ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region where 1.1 million people live, within 24 hours, said United Nations spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.

The order, delivered to the UN, comes as Israel presses ahead with its offensive once morest Hamas insurgents. According to Dujarric, the evacuation would be “impossible” without “devastating humanitarian consequences.”

This might indicate an imminent ground offensive, although the Israeli military has not confirmed this yet. The day before he said that he was preparing for it but that no decision had been made.