Israel orders evacuation of Gaza City as Trump says U.S. in ‘deep negotiations’ with Hamas

The Israeli army has ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate towards a “humanitarian zone” designated while its forces are pressing more deeply in the city, intensifying a major offensive aimed at taking control of the region.

The announcement reached after President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States was in “very deep” negotiations with Hamas, which had previously published a video showing two Israeli hostages seized with a music festival during terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023.

Addressing the residents of X on Saturday, the spokesperson for the defense forces of Israel, Avichay Adraee, urged civilians to move from Gaza City to the north to the Al-Mawasi security zone, a coastal area in the southern city of Khan Younis. There, he said, they would find “food supplies, tents, drugs and medical documents”.

In a separate article, he pressed “the residents of Gaza” to leave early “and join the thousands who have already moved there in recent days and weeks”.

The FDIs have made heavy strikes on Gaza City for weeks, progressing in the northern suburbs a few kilometers from its center.

Friday, its forces destroyed a tower of high height in a densely populated part of the city. The FDI said that it had warned civilians beforehand and – without providing evidence – that it was used by Hamas. Images have shown that the Palestinians presented themselves for security while the building collapsed in the seconds after the blow.

The Mushtaha tower management said it was used for displaced people and denied that it had been used for anything other than civil.

The assault against Gaza City – declared a “dangerous combat zone” by Israel – is expected to move hundreds of thousands of people, most of them already uprooted several times during the war. Aid groups warn the offensive could deepen the humanitarian disaster in the enclave and has already attracted international conviction.

The world’s leading world body said famine in Gaza for the first time last month. Israeli has denied information in increasing famine in the enclave.

The Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that “the lock was removed from the doors of hell to Gaza”, adding: “When the door opens, it will not.”

His comments came after an Israeli military spokesman said on Thursday that he now controlled around 40% of the city, where around a million people lived before the war. The army controls approximately 75% of Gaza.

Israel launched its military campaign after the terrorist attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, who saw 1,200 people killed and around 250 people took hostage.

Since then, Palestinian health officials have said that more than 64,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, while a large part of the enclave has been reduced to rubble.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Gaza City as the last Bastion of Hamas and ordered the soldiers to seize the largest urban center in the enclave. He also put pressure for an all or nothing agreement that would see all the hostages released at the same time and Hamas will surrender.

Hamas published a video on Friday of two Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, and one said that it was detained in Gaza City.

Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel are two of the 48 people still held by Hamas in Gaza, with 20 thoughts being still alive.

Gilboa-Dalal, the exhausted air, spoke for about three and a half minutes, saying that he was detained in Gaza City with other captives and feared being killed in the Israel assault.

Some images were taken in a car in a video dated August 28. NBC News could not check independently when it was recorded. Ohel is also seen briefly in the images.

Elsewhere, Trump told journalists on Friday that Washington was in “very deep” negotiations with Hamas, but that the situation would become “difficult” and “nasty” if Hamas did not free all the hostages.

“We have said to leave them all, right now, let them all go out. And much better things will happen for them, but if you don’t let them all, it’s going to be a difficult situation, it’s going to be mean,” said Trump, adding that Hamas “asked for certain things that are good”, without developing.