TEL AVIV, November 8. /TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces has said Hamas’ armed units lost control over the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

"We saw 50,000 Gazans move today from the northern Gaza Strip to the south. They are moving because they understand that Hamas has lost control in the north, while there’s a safer area in the south that’s getting supplies of medications, water and food," IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said. "Hamas has lost control and is continuing to lose control in the north."

"Hamas leaders have been cut off, they have been out of touch with society and their terrorists, who are fighting on the ground against our forces and dying. They have also been cut off from other countries. They are concerned only with their own survival. We will continue to hunt down the Hamas leadership, wherever they are, and destroy them," he went on to say.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. A total of 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and not all of the victims have been identified yet. Hamas has cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and has started delivering strikes on that area and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.