The Israeli military has claimed responsibility for the killing of a senior Hamas military commander, Murad Abu Murad, who allegedly headed the group's aerial operations in Gaza City.
The Israeli military stated that Murad was killed in air strikes targeting an operational centre of Hamas, responsible for its "aerial activity." However, Hamas has not confirmed the reported killing.
Since Hamas initiated a cross-border attack, Israeli strikes on Gaza have resulted in a significant loss of life. According to the territory's health ministry, at least 1,900 people, including 614 children, have been killed, and 7,696 people have been wounded in the seven days of airstrikes.
Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have fled to southern areas after Israel issued a warning for over a million people to evacuate the north in anticipation of a ground offensive against Hamas.
The United Nations has said the Israeli military had warned over 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate to the south "within the next 24 hours".
'Just the beginning'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the intense bombardment experienced in the past week was "just the beginning" of Israel's retaliation against Hamas whose fighters have so far killed more than 1,300 Israelis.
Israeli ground forces claimed to have conducted "localised" raids into Gaza in 24 hours, seeking to eliminate terrorists and weaponry.
Hamas took about 150 Israeli, foreign and dual national hostages, Israel claimed. The group said on Friday 13 of them had been killed in Israeli air strikes.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has insisted that addressing the mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza was a "priority".
Reuters journalist killed
Amid the escalating situation, a Reuters video journalist was killed, and several reporters -- from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera -- were injured in southern Lebanon due to cross-border shelling. In the occupied West Bank, at least 16 Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces during protests supporting Gaza.
The UN has called the displacement of nearly half of the 2.4 million in Gaza as "impossible", calling for the orders to be withdrawn.
"Moving more than one million people across a densely populated war zone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory of Gaza is under siege, is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible," UN chief Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.
AFP has claimed that the Israeli military on Friday dropped flyers warning residents to flee "immediately". The Israeli PM has vowed to "crush" Hamas, and likened it to the militant Islamic State group.
The Hamas group has said that Palestinians have rejected the evacuation orders, yet thousands of Gazans have stared moving to safer places with their belongings.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has likened this displacement to a "second Nakba" or "catastrophe", referring to the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war that led to Israel's creation.
'Fully prepared'
Isarel, on the other hand, has concerns about a potential second front in the north, as Hezbollah in Lebanon has expressed readiness that it is "fully prepared" to join the conflict when deemed appropriate.
Also on Saturday, Israeli forces claimed to have “struck a Hezbollah terror target in southern Lebanon" in retaliation to a drone crossing the border. US President Biden has warned other regional powers not to get involved.
On Friday, Biden had said that addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was a "priority".
"We can't lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas and Hamas's appalling attacks, and they're suffering as a result as well," he had said during a speech in Philadelphia.
The US president also reiterated his staunch support for Israel. "We're making sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and respond to these attacks," he stressed.
"It's also a priority for me to urgently address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza," he said. "At my direction our teams are working in the region, including communicating directly with the governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations and the United Nations to surge support."
