Israel estimates that its imminent offensive on Gaza City would displace one million Palestinians, a senior military official said Wednesday, as Gaza's civil defence reported dozens killed across the territory.
Israel's military has been building up its forces for the planned operation to seize Gaza City, the Palestinian territory's largest urban centre located in its northern part, despite mounting global concern for Palestinian civilians suffering dire humanitarian conditions.
Military chief Eyal Zamir said troops were already "intensifying our combat operations", according to an army statement.
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The senior official from COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said "approximately 70,000" Palestinians had already left Gaza's north in recent days, fleeing the Israeli advance.
Briefing journalists on condition of anonymity, the official said Israeli authorities expected "a million people" to flee south, without giving a specific timeframe.
The vast majority of Gaza's more than two million people have been displaced at least once during nearly two years of war.
According to UN estimates, nearly a million people currently live in and around Gaza City, where famine has been declared.
In late August, an Israeli military spokesman said the evacuation of Gaza City was "inevitable", while the Red Cross has warned that any Israeli attempt to do so would be impossible in a safe and dignified manner.
Deadly strikes
On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 62 people on Wednesday.
Umm Abd Abu Al-Jubain told AFP she lost her daughter, son-in-law and several other relatives in a strike on Gaza City.
The bodies were "in pieces, and we pulled this boy out" from under the rubble, she said of her grandson, who survived the strike.
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"Your father and mother have gone and left you, my dear," Abu al-Jubain told the bruised boy, holding him in her arms.
As Israel prepares for Gaza City's evacuation, the COGAT official said a planned "humanitarian area" would be set up, extending from a cluster of refugee camps in central Gaza to the southern area of Al-Mawasi and eastwards.
Israel had designated the coastal area of Al-Mawasi a humanitarian zone in the early days of the war, but has repeatedly struck it since.
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