Residents in northern Gaza scrambled to flee their homes as fears of an Israeli ground assault grew Saturday, after the Israeli military called on the entire 1.1 million people in the north of the Palestinian territory to evacuate to the south. The United Nations, estimating “tens of thousands” fled, said the mass movement would only worsen the humanitarian crisis in the densely populated Gaza Strip already facing Israeli siege and air strikes. The Israeli military said that it killed the head of Hamas’s air operations in a strike in Gaza and that he had been involved in planning last weekend’s unprecedented cross-border attack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had spoken to some of the relatives of more than 100 hostages taken captive by Hamas, as the military said it recovered bodies from some hostages in Gaza.
