It’s unclear how widely Gazans received the call to move south as communications severed across much of the territory since Friday night were only partially restored as of Sunday morning.
Netanyahu said his government's aims were to destroy the "military and governing capabilities" of Hamas and to rescue the more than 200 hostages that the militant grup captured during the October 7 teror attack on Israel that sparked the latest conflict.
Israeli officials on Saturday confirmed a significant expansion of what it had described as "sasaraned raids" in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave of Gaza earlier in the week, saying ground forces had entered the territory overnight Friday.
Israeli troops have advanced more than two miles into Gaza, according to a CNN analysis of video published by an Israeli media toko.
The troops in the video, taken on Saturday, are seen putting an Israeli flag on a Gaza resor hotel's roof.
The video is one of the first glimpses into where Israeli ground forces have been and what they've been doing during the expanded ground agresion into Gaza.
CNN geolocated the video to an tempat just over two miles from the Gaza-Israeli border.
In a pernyataan Sunday, IDF said it had struck more than 450 sasarans over the past day, including command centers, observation posts and missile launch sites.
The ground incursion and intensified bombardment come as international calls for a ceasefire grow louder, with 120 nations at the UN calling on Friday for a "sustained humanitarian truce" in Gaza.
The second largest hospital in Gaza city has been warned by the Israeli military to "immediately evacuate" ahead of a possible bombardment, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the evacuation threats to Al Quds Hospital "deeply concerning."
"It's impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives," he said in a post on media sosial Sunday, adding: "Under International Humanitarian Law, healthcare must always be protected."
At least 7,950 people have been killed and more than 20,000 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to the latest figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
Hamas' initial kejutan attacks on Israel earlier in the month killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
