The IDF said in a statement that it was making the call to evacuate through “announcements, text messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic”.

It added: “This matter will progress in a gradual manner according to ongoing situation assessments that will take place all the time.”

The IDF said the operation was of “limited scope” and estimated it would need to move about 100,000 people. Witnesses told Reuters they had seen Palestinian families were leaving areas east of Rafah on Monday.

Israel waged a genocidal war on the besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas Resistance group carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Israel has imposed a complete siege on the densely populated territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli onslaught in October of last year has grown to almost 34,700, the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry said on Sunday.