Israel’s deadline for the roughly 1.1 million residents of the northern side of the Gaza Strip to flee to the south has caused a “massive movement” of population into the Palestinian enclave, the UN said today.

Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, Israel is pounding the besieged Gaza Strip while the deadline given to Palestinian civilians to follow a “safe corridor” ended at 1pm today.

Since Friday morning, there has been a steady flow of overloaded cars, trucks and carts heading south as entire “caravans” of civilians – those who have so far escaped the bombardment – are trying to flee to save themselves from the imminent Israeli ground attack.

Read: Palestinian death toll reaches 2,383 in Gaza and West Bank

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Meanwhile yesterday, an airstrike on convoys of civilians leaving northern Gaza killed at least 70 people, most of them women and children, with Hamas and Israel blaming each other for the strike.

Mass evacuation – Where are the evacuees going?

“Mass movement from north to south continues,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

“The cooperating humanitarian organizations report that the number of internally displaced people has increased significantly in the last 24 hours. However, their exact number is unknown,” he added.

As of Thursday night there were 423,000 internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip.

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Most of them were hosted by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, in 102 emergency shelters. About 33,000 were housed in 36 public schools.

“We estimate that more than 150,000 displaced people, whose homes were destroyed or damaged, or who fled out of fear, sought refuge with relatives or neighbors and other public places,” the agency added.