Israel begins a new phase of the war: it will attack southern Gaza, the last 'refuge' for thousands of Palestinians

Following its incursions into the northern Gaza Strip, the state of Israel has announced plans to intensify operations in the south, in areas where the army had warned civilians to flee for their safety, The Guardian reports.

When Israeli planes attacked northern Gaza at the start of the war and troops prepared to enter on foot, Israeli messages urged civilians to move south to the Wadi Gaza wetlands for their own safety.

Despite the risks of the journey and severe overcrowding in shelters and private homes, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians followed those orders.. About 1.6 million people are displaced, more than two-thirds of Gaza's population, the UN said.

Now many of those people have been told to move again and concentrate on an even smaller area along the coast, around the town of Mawasi.

Israel's top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Friday that the country's troops would attack “wherever Hamas exists, including the south of the strip.”. He told reporters: “We are determined to advance our operation.”

This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted in an interview that the war was taking a heavy toll on civilians in Gaza, but blamed Hamas for the deaths.. “That's what we're trying to do: minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately we have not achieved it,” he told CBS.

As The Guardian notes, it is unclear where civilians might go to escape fighting if it intensifies in the south.. Gaza was already densely populated before the current fighting began on October 7, triggered by Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

The enclave, of 365 square kilometers, was home to 2.3 million people. Now that the north has largely emptied, most of those people are in the south, in private homes or UN shelters.