Israel will launch an attack on Gaza “soon” and begin significant military operations once civilians have left the area. 

A ground offensive in the north of Gaza, involving a “joint and coordinated attack from the air, sea and land”, is understood to be imminent. 

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, accused Hamas of trying to use civilians as human shields and issued a new appeal to Gaza residents to move south. 

“We are going to attack Gaza City very broadly soon,” he said in an address on Saturday night, without giving a timetable for the attack against the 25-mile-long Gaza Strip territory.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said Israel had given “ample warning” for more than 1 million Gazans to evacuate and move south. 

“The Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not our enemies,” he said. “We don’t assess them as such, and we don’t target them as such. We are trying to do the right thing.”

The Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday that 300 Palestinians were killed, mostly children and women, and 800 others were injured in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

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