Thousands of leaflets ordering residents to leave famine-stricken Gaza City rained down upon its streets on Tuesday as Israel pushed further ahead with its plans to occupy the area.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of an “intensified ground maneuver” on Monday evening and ordered residents of Gaza’s largest city to leave, just hours after two gunmen opened fire at a Jerusalem bus stop and killed six people.
Hamas hailed the attack, the deadliest in Israel since October 2024, as “heroic.” It did not claim responsibility for the shootings.
Netanyahu said the elimination of the gunmen or their supporters was “not enough.”
“My directive is to strike hard against terror strongholds,” he said after visiting the scene of the shooting with Israel’s far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“I promised you that we would take down Gaza’s terror towers,” he added, referring to multiple high-rise buildings destroyed by Israel in recent days, “and that is exactly what we are doing.”
“You have been warned—leave!” Netanyahu said, addressing Gaza City’s residents.
Ultranationalist Ben-Gvir told Israeli’s to “arm yourselves” in a separate statement Monday, and criticized Sunday’s Israeli Supreme Court ruling that the government had deprived Palestinian prisoners of even a minimum subsistence diet.
Images from Gaza City on Sunday showed Palestinians jumping to catch leaflets falling from the sky, ordering them to evacuate to the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone,” about 20 miles south. The Israeli military has struck areas deemed humanitarian zones, so few in the enclave consider them safe.
