Hamas is blocking the citizens of Gaza from heading south after Israel warned more than one million people to flee, the Israel Defense Forces have claimed.
In an update posted to X, the IDF shared two photos showing an alleged Hamas roadblock along a road in Gaza.
Another photo showed a long line of cars, purportedly residents who wanted to escape Gaza City ahead of an Israeli ground offensive.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus said: “Hamas has issued warnings to their civilians not to evacuate and when people didn’t listen to those warnings, Hamas actually stopped convoys of Gazan civilians trying to flee the situation.”
He added the pictures released by IDF “correspond with intelligence sources we have” that Hamas was “actively preventing civilians from leaving the south.”
He said: “If that isn’t the most sinister and vile use of civilians during war, I don’t know what is.”
Last night, Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields and hinted at an imminent ground offensive.
He said: “We are going to attack Gaza City very broadly soon.”
Israel has warned residents north of the Gaza River to flee south, something the UN called “impossible”. It says around 1.1 million people live in northern Gaza.
Israel declared war on Hamas after the group launched a massive terrorist attack on October 7 which left at least 1,300 Israelis dead many of them young people, women and children.
Hamas also took at least 120 hostages in Gaza, according to the IDF. Israel responded by launching hundreds of airstrikes on Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that at least 2,329 people – many women and children – had been killed in Gaza.
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