GAZA – Israel gave civilians still trapped inside freshly encircled Gaza City a four-hour window to leave on Tuesday.

It said its forces had surrounded the city, home to a third of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people, and were poised to attack it soon in a campaign to annihilate the Hamas Islamists who attacked Israeli towns exactly a month ago.

In some of the first direct comments on Israel’s plans for the future of Gaza after the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take on security responsibility for the territory for an indefinite period once it defeats the militants that have controlled it for the past 16 years.

Israel gave residents a window from 10am to 2pm to leave Gaza City.

Residents said Israeli tanks had been moving mostly at night, with Israeli forces largely relying on air and artillery strikes to clear a path for their ground advance.

“For your safety, take this next opportunity to move south beyond Wadi Gaza,” the military announced, referring to the wetlands that bisect the strip.

A still image taken from an Israeli military video showed what the military said were Palestinians holding white flags as they moved south in a line. Hamas said the army had forced the people in the video to act that way to humiliate them.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry said 900,000 Palestinians were still sheltering in northern Gaza, including in Gaza City.

“The most dangerous trip in my life. We saw the tanks from point blank. We saw decomposed body parts. We saw death,” resident Adam Fayez Zeyara posted with a selfie of himself on the road out of Gaza City.

While Israel’s military operation is focused on the northern half of Gaza, the south has also come under attack.

Palestinian health officials said at least 23 people were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes early on Tuesday in the southern Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

“We are civilians,” said Mr Ahmed Ayesh, who was rescued from the rubble of a house in Khan Younis where health officials said 11 people had been killed. “This is the bravery of the so-called Israel, they show their might and power against civilians, babies inside, kids inside, and elderly.”

As he spoke, rescuers at the house used their hands to try to free a girl buried up to her waist in debris.

Mr Netanyahu said Israel would consider “tactical little pauses” in Gaza fighting to let hostages leave or aid enter, but again rejected calls for a ceasefire.

“As far as tactical little pauses – an hour here, an hour there – we’ve had them before. I suppose we’ll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages, to leave,” he told ABC News.

But he added: “There will be no ceasefire – general ceasefire – in Gaza, without the release of our hostages.”

When asked who would be responsible for security in Gaza after Hamas was defeated, Mr Netanyahu said: “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility.”

His comments came after the White House said the Israeli leader had discussed potential “tactical pauses” in a phone call with American President Joe Biden on Monday. But no agreements were announced and the pair did not broach the possibility of a ceasefire.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC: “We’re going to keep talking to (Netanyahu) about (the pause in fighting) and, as appropriate, we’ll see what we can do to help put them in place.”

The surprise attack by Hamas on Oct 7 killed 1,400 in Israel, most of them civilians.

The Palestinian militant group also took more than 240 people hostage, including children and elderly people, which prompted Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza and an intensifying ground offensive.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry said that 10,328 Palestinians, including 4,237 children, have been killed.

More than 1.5 million people in densely packed Gaza have fled their homes for other parts of the territory in a desperate search for cover, with critical aid only trickling in.

Israel’s military said it had captured a militant compound in the northern Gaza Strip and was set to attack fighters hiding in a warren of underground tunnels. It released footage showing troops using bulldozers to dig up earth and knock over walls.

Israeli Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht told reporters that Hamas fighters were “popping out” from tunnels to fire rocket-propelled grenades at Israeli forces.

“So we’re really putting an effort into taking out these tunnels as we move in and close in on Gaza City,” he said.

Israeli aircraft struck several Hamas militants who had barricaded themselves in a building near Al-Quds Hospital inside Gaza City, the military said.

Israeli troops who have taken up positions near the Gaza border said they felt proud to protect their country but also nervous, as the war intensifies.

Stationed near Gaza, a 20-year-old soldier said he was “a bit scared to go” into the Palestinian territory if given the order.

“You don’t know if you can come back alive,” said the soldier, whose name, like those of other troops, cannot be published because of Israeli military censorship.

Around 30 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the offensive, the latest on Monday, according to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing Israeli sources.

Unrelenting horror stories of civilian suffering on both sides have polarised world opinion over the past month.

International organisations have said hospitals cannot cope with the wounded, and food and clean water are running out, with aid deliveries nowhere near enough.

“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” said a statement from the heads of several United Nations bodies on Monday.

Washington has been pushing hard to arrange pauses in the conflict to allow aid to enter.

But it has argued, like Israel, that Hamas would take advantage of a full ceasefire to regroup.

‘Graveyard for children’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children”, calling for an urgent ceasefire in the enclave.

“Ground operations by the Israel Defence Forces and continued bombardment are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities – including shelters. No one is safe,” Mr Guterres told reporters.

“At the same time, Hamas and other militants use civilians as human shields and continue to launch rockets indiscriminately towards Israel,” he said.

Hundreds of protesters, many from the Jewish Voice for Peace group, staged a sit-in on Monday outside New York’s Statue of Liberty, calling for a ceasefire and a free Palestine.

Video footage on social media showed throngs of activists sitting at the base of the statue chanting “Never again for anyone, never again is now”, echoing a Jewish rallying cry in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

The UN Security Council met behind closed doors on Monday. The 15-member body is still trying to agree a resolution after failing four times in two weeks to take action.

Diplomats said a key obstacle is whether to call for a ceasefire, cessation of hostilities or humanitarian pauses to allow aid access in Gaza.

At a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading democracies in Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said the group plans to call for a pause in fighting and to allow humanitarian access to Gaza.

Mr Biden’s administration has informed the US Congress that it is planning a US$320 million (S$434 million) transfer of precision bombs for Israel, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday.

Israel said on Monday that it was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to a barrage of rockets fired at northern Israeli cities.

The Israeli military said it detected around 30 launches from Lebanon in an hour.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since the Hamas-Israel war began on Oct 7.

It is the worst fighting there since Hezbollah and Israel fought a war in 2006.

Hamas said it had launched 16 missiles towards Nahariyya and Southern Haifa in Israel. AFP, REUTERS