The Israeli army has again called on civilians in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south of the coastal enclave.
They made the call after denying reports of a planned ceasefire with Gaza’s rulers Hamas.
The Israeli army would not attack a corresponding escape corridor between 8 and 12 a.m. (0500 and 0900 GMT), an army spokesman said in a post in Arabic on the platform X, formerly Twitter.
He also published a map with a marked route.
The announcement came after the Israeli army continued to shell Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the densely populated coastal enclave were seeking shelter in the south in response to a looming Israeli ground offensive.
Attacks on the Gaza Strip have continued over the past 24 hours, the Israeli military said early on Monday morning.
According to the news website Ynet, citing Palestinians, last night’s was the heaviest bombardment to date.
The Israeli army on Monday denied reports of a planned ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“There is no ceasefire,’’ the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in the morning.
Earlier, there had been reports that a ceasefire would be implemented for several hours to allow foreign nationals to leave the Gaza Strip for Egypt.
Also as well as the entry of aid via the Rafah border crossing.
The Israeli military has been bombarding targets in Gaza since the unprecedented attacks on Israeli civilians carried out by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7.
Hamas, which rules Gaza, is classified as a terrorist organisation by the European Union, the U.S. and Israel.
The heavy bombardment has caused severe devastation in Gaza, where the death toll has now risen to 2,670.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry on Sunday evening, around 9,600 people have been injured.
The coastal enclave on the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with about 2.2 million people living on around 45 square kilometres.
The Israeli military is preparing a possible ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of thousands of reservists have been moved to the Gaza border.
Meanwhile in northern Israel, following repeated attacks by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia from southern Lebanon, Israel has ordered the evacuation of settlements up to 2 kilometres from the border area.
The office of Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that 28 towns on Israel’s northern border were affected.
The residents were to be taken to safety at state expense and housed in guest houses.
The Israeli army had already declared a 4-kilometre-wide strip in the border area a restricted zone on Sunday.
There have been increasingly violent incidents on the border between Israel and Lebanon in recent days, fuelling concerns of a further regional escalation of the conflict. (dpa/NAN)
