Israel announces evacuation in southern Gaza Strip — UN Office

Israeli authorities have ordered the evacuation of the population in the southern Gaza Strip, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced, Report informs referring to TASS.

"On 20 December, the Israeli military designated a new area covering about 20 percent of central and south of Khan Younis city for immediate evacuation," the department’s press service said in a statement.

As noted by OCHA, there are 32 shelters in the territory designated by the Israeli military, which shelter more than 141,000 internally displaced persons forced to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said the ground operation in Gaza would expand to new areas, including Khan Younis, which the minister said had become the new capital of terror.