Israeli officials on Wednesday accused Hamas of preventing civilians from evacuating Gaza City ahead of Israel’s plans for a major offensive to conquer the area, saying the terror group was using them as human shields while amplifying claims of “forced displacement” to sway international opinion.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces released a recording it said was of a Gaza City man complaining of Hamas obstructing escape routes.

Despite those allegations, defense officials estimated that 70,000 to 80,000 people have fled the city so far, most of them in the past 72 hours (over the weekend, the number stood at 10,000). The figures are still far short of the city’s estimated one million residents, though officials expect departures to continue as the IDF presses its campaign.

“The Hamas terror organization is doing everything it can to block the population’s movement south in order to use civilians as human shields and for propaganda purposes,” one security official said. “In practice, the public’s barrier of fear has been broken, and tens of thousands of residents have managed to bypass Hamas checkpoints and evacuate the city.”

The allegations came as the IDF is making a range of preparations for the Gaza City offensive, which is expected to begin in the middle of the month. Israel is also taking measures to bolster humanitarian assistance in the regions south of Gaza City, where it is telling civilians to gather, and is conducting training for the tens of thousands of reservists called up ahead of the operation.

Evacuating civilians from the densely populated city has been a key part of Israel’s plan, and the IDF said the recording it released on Wednesday depicts a Gaza City resident telling an officer from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), its liaison body to Palestinians, that Hamas is preventing civilians from moving south.

“We want to go south but Hamas is blocking the way,” a man’s voice is heard saying. “They tell people: Go back home, there is no evacuation, go back, go back — and people scatter.”

The man adds that many residents are fearful, with some attempting to take side streets and alternative routes. According to the testimony, Hamas operatives are stationed along the seashore in western Gaza City and other areas, blocking main roads.

The IDF said the testimony highlights Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields to deter military operations. Hamas has rejected the evacuation plan as “forced displacement.”

The terror group’s media office accused Israel of spreading “lies and misleading maps” and warned that designated humanitarian zones, including al-Mawasi and refugee camps in central Gaza, are already overcrowded and unsafe. Hamas-run outlets, including the al-Haras channel, have echoed the claims, asserting that no area in southern Gaza can be considered safe.

Israel has rejected those allegations and has said it is scaling up humanitarian infrastructure in southern Gaza, particularly in the al-Mawasi coastal area, in coordination with the UN, the US and regional partners. The zone is intended to accommodate up to two million people, with expanded deliveries of food, medicine and shelter supplies, as well as repairs to water and health facilities.

Those preparations come as international organizations have said there is widespread starvation and famine in parts of Gaza, a determination Israel has denied. On Wednesday, the Hamas-run health ministry reported that five adults and one child had died from malnutrition over the past day, bringing the total toll to 367, including 131 children.

Israel has taken steps to increase the flow of aid, though the UN and other humanitarian organizations have said the amount of aid entering Gaza is not nearly enough to remedy the dire conditions in the enclave.

Alongside the expansion of humanitarian infrastructure, the IDF said it is boosting operational and logistical preparedness for reservists called up for the planned Gaza City offensive, dubbed Operation “Gideon’s Chariots B.”

Over the coming weeks, troops are due to participate in open-terrain and urban warfare exercises to strengthen readiness across the Gaza Strip. Advanced equipment and weapons, including drones for company and platoon-level commanders, have been deployed to enhance tactical capabilities.

In preparation for the large-scale call-up, the IDF has also upgraded military infrastructure, including new firing ranges, air-conditioned accommodations and hot-water showering facilities.

The Technology and Logistics Directorate is providing comprehensive support, covering personal gear, infrastructure, vehicle maintenance, daily logistics, and both medical and mental health care for the reservists.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of reservists were called up for duty as the first phase of a wider draft for the planned offensive, amid reports of lower turnout rates than in previous rounds of call-ups. And on Wednesday, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee voted 8-5 to pass an extension of an emergency military call-up order until September 30.

The order was previously extended on August 18 by a close vote of 8-7. The repeated extensions of the military call-up have long drawn criticism from opposition lawmakers, who have accused the government of overburdening exhausted reservists while simultaneously seeking to legislate draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men.

The IDF said Wednesday that the Israeli Navy conducted a joint exercise in the Mediterranean Sea on Monday with maritime combat management systems and the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade.

Troops practiced a variety of combat scenarios along the maritime border and emergency procedures across command posts, aimed at enhancing readiness and real-time coordination between naval and ground forces.

The statement came days before a large activist flotilla is set to try to break the maritime blockade of Gaza, though there was no evidence to suggest the drill was connected to that.

Also on Wednesday, the IDF announced that the new Gaza head of the Mujahideen Brigades terror group had been killed in a joint Shin Bet and IDF operation in the Strip last week.

The military said Musbah Salim Musbah Dayyah, killed in Nuseirat, was involved in recruiting members in the West Bank and advancing terror attacks in that territory and in Israel, as well as attacks on IDF forces in Gaza.

It was the fourth time the IDF said it had eliminated the organization’s leader in the past few months, after Dayyah’s predecessors were also assassinated.

The IDF released footage of the strike.

The IDF said Mujahideen Brigades members had a “significant part” in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught, and took an active part in murders and abductions.

Among those kidnapped by the group were Shiri Bibas and her children — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 10 months. The three were later murdered in captivity and their bodies were returned in a deal earlier this year.

A United Nations committee said Wednesday that at least 21,000 children have become disabled in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023.

The source for the data was unclear, and likely relied on Hamas’s numbers. The terror group includes all under-18s in that designation. Israeli officials note that it is not uncommon for older teens to join terror groups and take part in combat.

Around 40,500 children have suffered “new war-related injuries” in the nearly two years since the war erupted, with more than half of them left disabled, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said.

Reviewing the situation in the Palestinian territories, it said Israeli evacuation orders during the army’s offensive in Gaza were “often inaccessible” to people with hearing or visual impairments, “rendering evacuation impossible.”

“Reports also described people with disabilities being forced to flee in unsafe and undignified conditions, such as crawling through sand or mud without mobility assistance,” it said.

The committee said the restrictions on humanitarian aid being brought into the Gaza Strip were disproportionately impacting the disabled.

“People with disabilities faced severe disruptions in assistance, leaving many without food, clean water, or sanitation and dependent on others for survival,” it said.

Meanwhile, hospital officials told The Associated Press at least 24 people were killed in strikes overnight into Wednesday.

Nasser Hospital said it received 10 bodies, including one aid-seeker in Rafah and a child killed by a strike in southern Gaza. Shifa Hospital said the bodies of 14 people, including two children and four women, arrived on Wednesday while Al-Quds Hospital said it received another person killed by Israeli strikes.

Israel has intensified air and ground assaults on the outskirts of Gaza City, particularly in western neighborhoods where people are being driven to flee toward the coast, according to humanitarian groups that coordinate assistance for the displaced.

Site Management Cluster, one such group, said on Wednesday that families were trapped by the prohibitively high cost of moving, logistical hurdles and a lack of places to go.

“Palestinians are also reluctant to move due to the fear of not being able to return or exhaustion from repeated displacement,” it said.

More than 62,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.