The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza on Sunday before intensified fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump called for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a cease-fire.
鈥淢ake the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,鈥 Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel鈥檚 offensive.
A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.
But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area.
Palestinian and UN officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.
鈥淭he (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations,鈥 the military said.
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts.
Medics and residents said the Israeli army鈥檚 bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
In Khan Younis in the south, five people were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment near Mawasi, medics said.
NEW CEASE-FIRE PUSH
The escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new cease-fire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened in the wake of US and Israeli bombings of Iran鈥檚 nuclear facilities.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume cease-fire talks, but reaffirmed the group鈥檚 outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war.
Israel says it can only end it if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Israel鈥檚 subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.