Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has warned that the Israeli military is preparing for “large-scale massacres”, Al Jazeera reports.

Israel has threatened that any Palestinians who remain in Gaza City will be defined as “terrorists or terror supporters”. Lazzarini condemned the announcement as an ominous signal that anyone who cannot or will not leave the area will be targeted by the Israeli military.

“Labelling the nearly 250,000 people currently trapped in Gaza City and the north as ‘terrorists or terror supporters’ by the Government of Israel is a statement suggesting planned large-scale massacres: killing more women, children, elderly and vulnerable people unable to move out,” Lazzarini said in a social media post.

“No one has the license to kill civilians. Ongoing international crimes in Gaza cannot continue to be implicitly tolerated. More inaction will lead to more complicity to what the UN Commission of Inquiry has already concluded is genocide. Time to act.”