Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids while trying to flee the northern Gaza Strip, according to Hamas officials, after the Israeli military ordered more than one million residents to evacuate in a demand rejected by the United Nations as “impossible”.

The Israeli military asked Palestinian families to leave their homes and head towards southern Gaza for safety. When the Palestinian families took to the streets and headed towards southern Gaza they were killed.

The media office of Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs the besieged Gaza Strip, said 70 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the air raids on cars leaving Gaza City. It said the vehicles were targeted in three places.