Netanyahu tells Gaza City residents to leave as he pledges retaliation for Jerusalem attack
Thousands of leaflets ordering residents to immediately leave famine-stricken Gaza City rained down on its streets Tuesday as Israel pushed ahead with plans to drive all Palestinians from the area.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of an “intensified ground maneuver” Monday evening and ordered residents of Gaza’s largest city to leave just hours after two gunmen opened fire at a Jerusalem bus stop, killing six people.
Hamas hailed the attack, the deadliest in Israel since October 2024, as “heroic” and claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released on Tuesday.
Netanyahu said the elimination of the gunmen or their supporters was “not enough.”
“My directive is to strike hard against terror strongholds,” he said after visiting the scene of the shooting with Israel’s far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“I promised you that we would take down Gaza’s terror towers,” he added, referring to multiple high-rise buildings destroyed by Israel in recent days, “and that is exactly what we are doing.”
“You have been warned — leave!” Netanyahu said, addressing Gaza City’s residents.
Ultranationalist Ben-Gvir told Israelis to “arm yourselves” in a separate statement Monday and criticized Sunday’s Israeli Supreme Court ruling that the government had deprived Palestinian prisoners of a minimum subsistence diet.
Images from Gaza City on Sunday showed Palestinians jumping to catch leaflets falling from the sky, ordering them to evacuate to the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone,” about 20 miles south. The Israeli military has struck areas deemed humanitarian zones, so few in the enclave consider them safe.
The assault on Gaza City — declared a “dangerous combat zone” by Israel — is expected to displace hundreds of thousands of people, most of them already uprooted multiple times during the war.
The Israeli military has been carrying out heavy strikes on the city for weeks, advancing through northern suburbs to within a few miles of its center.
It has destroyed multiple high-rise buildings, saying Hamas was operating from inside them, without providing evidence.
