I understand the hesitation. It’s treating humans as numbers. But civilian casualties will always be nonzero in war. Especially when one side is using human shields.

Asking people to move south is actually proof they want to avoid human casualties. There never was a chance 100% will leave, and sure as shit not in 24 hours. But if 50% leave after 3 days and 80% after a week, then when the eventual ground invasion comes there will be far fewer civilians left who can be killed in the crossfire.