TEL AVIV, November 12. /TASS/. About 200,000 Gaza City residents have left the city over the past three days alone, suggesting that Hamas is losing control over the northern part of the enclave, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

"A lot of people have been leaving in recent days because Hamas has lost control of the northern Gaza Strip. Almost 200,000 people have left over the past three days alone," he said at a news conference.

The spokesman said the civilian population is leaving the embattled northern part of the Strip "contrary to the instructions" from Hamas, who, according to the Israeli military, use civilians as human shields.

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. 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.