Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on the X platform that "all those present in the southwestern area of Deir al-Balah, including those living in tents, must evacuate immediately," calling for people to head towards the Mawasi area in the southern Gaza Strip.
The occupation army attached a map showing the areas covered by the warning, which house thousands of displaced persons, threatening to launch a ground operation for the first time in this area, which has until now been immune to Israeli ground operations.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported, "For the first time since the beginning of the war, the army has issued an evacuation warning to the residents of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip." The corporation noted that the army avoided entering the central refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, including Deir al-Balah, out of fear for the lives of Israeli prisoners held there.
For their part, the families of the Israeli prisoners expressed "concern and panic" over the army's announcement of its intention to expand its operations in the central Gaza Strip, considering such a move to pose a "tangible and direct threat" to their children's lives.
"We wonder if anyone can guarantee that this decision will not come at the expense of the lives of our loved ones," the families said in a statement, referring to previous accusations they had leveled against Netanyahu of prioritizing his political agenda over the fate of the prisoners.
In the same context, former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to prolong the war to achieve political gains.
"Netanyahu wants to keep the war raging until elections are held," Lieberman told the Israeli Broadcasting Authority, stressing that "Hamas cannot be eliminated before all the hostages are returned at once."
Tel Aviv estimates that there are 50 Israeli detainees in Gaza, 20 of whom are still alive. Meanwhile, more than 10,800 Palestinians are languishing in its prisons, suffering torture, starvation, and medical neglect, many of whom have died, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights and media reports.
The leader of the opposition Yisrael Beiteinu party added, "The war must end first, and then all pressure must be directed at Netanyahu," without specifying whether he was referring to the general elections scheduled for 2026 or the early elections expected at the end of this year or early next year.
These developments come amid escalating fighting and ongoing massacres of Palestinian civilians, with no serious indications of a ceasefire or prisoner exchange agreement imminent.
For days, indirect negotiations have been underway in the Qatari capital, Doha, between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Egypt and Qatar and supported by the United States, in an attempt to reach a deal and ceasefire in Gaza.
In another context, Lieberman described Israel's plans to establish a detention camp, dubbed a "humanitarian city," on the ruins of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip as a "fake initiative that contradicts the goals of the war."
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war of genocide in Gaza, including killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, ignoring all international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt it.
The US-backed genocide left more than 199,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 9,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and a famine that claimed the lives of many.
