Israel military says Gaza residents must not ‘delay’ evacuation ahead of looming ground offensive

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Gaza authorities say at least 2,215 people have died in Israeli retaliatory strikes against Gaza targets over the past seven days.

Among them, 324 people were killed in the past 24 hours alone, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said.

AFP