Gaza City, Gaza - Israel's military on Friday ordered all civilians from northern Gaza to evacuate, for their "safety and protection," as it prepares for a full-scale ground invasion.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus said that the Israeli military sent residents of Gaza City a message telling them to evacuate "from their homes southwards for their own safety and protection."

"The Hamas terrorist organization waged a war against the state of Israel, and Gaza City is an area where military operations are taking place," Conricus said reading the message to residents in a daily briefing broadcast on X on Friday morning.

"This evacuation is for your own safety. You will be able to return to Gaza City only when another announcement permitting it is made," Conricus said, explaining that Gazans were warned not to approach the security fence with Israel but rather just evacuate south within the Gaza Strip.

Joke of the Day Joke of the Day for May 13, 2024: Get your funny on

Conricus said the guidance a "humanitarian step that the IDF is taking in order to minimize civilian casualties as this war unfolds."

According to the UN, the evacuation would affect more than 1 million people and would be impossible to execute "without devastating humanitarian consequences."

The Israeli military again called on residents of Gaza to leave their homes by 8 PM local time on Friday (1 PM EDT) – mere minutes from now – and head south.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said it would not attack an escape route marked on a map until that time, in a post written in Arabic on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Beit Hanun residents should go to Khan Yunes, the statement said, adding that further instructions would follow.

Nearly 1,800 Gazans – most of them civilians and including over 580 children – have been killed in waves of Israeli missile strikes on the densely populated enclave.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Israel does not have the right to "limitless destruction of Gaza."

The US must rein in Israel to avert a regional spillover of the war in Gaza, Iran's top diplomat said Friday in Beirut, adding Tehran was seeking to safeguard Lebanon's security.

"America wants to give Israel a chance to destroy Gaza, and this is... a grave mistake," Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, adding, "if the Americans want to prevent the war in the region from developing, they must control Israel."

Amir-Abdollahian later warned: "If the systemic war crimes of the Zionist regime do not stop immediately, any possibility is conceivable."

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Friday warned against a "second Nakba" catastrophe facing Palestinians after the Israeli army ordered more than one million people to evacuate north Gaza.

Abbas, whom US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to meet, "completely rejects the displacement of our people from the Gaza Strip, because it will be tantamount to a second Nakba for our people," he said, according to a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Nakba, or "catastrophe", refers to some 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war that led to Israel's creation.

Human rights bodies and aid organizations from all over the world have urged Israel to rescind its order amid an already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Israel since Hamas militants unleashed a massive attack from the blockaded Gaza Strip, the army said Friday, raising an earlier toll by 100.

Over 3,200 other people had been wounded, the Israeli army said on X, formerly Twitter, while families of 120 hostages have been contacted since attack at dawn on Saturday that spiraled into all-out war.

The latest Palestinian death toll stood at 1,537 on Friday morning, the majority of whom are women and children.