The Israeli army warned, this Friday, that it will operate with a “significant force” in Gaza in the coming days and called on the population in the north of the territory to withdraw to the south to be able to attack Hamas.
“Because we understand that there are civilians here who are not our enemies and that we do not want to target them, we are asking them to leave,” said Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus, quoted by the US agency AP.
Israel has concentrated forces near the Gaza Strip in an indication of a ground offensive, after having bombed territory controlled by the Islamist group Hamas in recent days.
The escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered by Hamas, which carried out an unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday, killing civilians and soldiers and taking more than a hundred hostages, taken to the Gaza Strip.
