GAZA CITY, Palestine

Authorities in the Gaza Strip warned Palestinians on Wednesday about "suspicious" Israeli telephone calls asking them to return to their homes in northern areas.

The Government Media Office warned about the calls that told Palestinians they could return home in northern Gaza "through the military checkpoint erected by the (Israeli) occupation army on the coastal Al-Rasheed Street in the evening hours."

"We urge our people to be extremely cautious from these suspicious and untrusted telephone calls," it said in a statement.

It noted that in the past, the Israeli army committed crimes against Palestinians who were trying to return to northern Gaza.

Palestinian social media activists published posts late Tuesday that said the army telephoned displaced Palestinian families asking them to return to their homes in northern Gaza from Al-Rasheed Street at 6 p.m. local time Wednesday.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

More than 37,600 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 86,100 others injured, according to local health authorities.

More than eight months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar