The US says Israel must do more to protect civilians. Experts see little change.

“I do not feel that the renewed Israeli operations are significantly different from the previous operations in terms of minimizing the risk of harm to civilians,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department and now a senior adviser. for the U.S. program of the International Crisis Group, said.

More than 300 people were killed in Gaza every day between Saturday and Monday, according to figures from Gaza health officials, a daily toll that resembled those seen in the earlier weeks of the war. The UN Humanitarian Office said that the period from Sunday to Monday afternoon saw “some of the heaviest shelling in Gaza to date.”

Since Israel resumed its bombing campaign, with a new focus on southern Gaza, much of its new effort to protect civilians revolves around its publication on Friday of an online map that divides Gaza in hundreds of small sectors. In the days since, military officials have posted on social media about which sectors Gazans should evacuate and where they should go.

Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, said Monday that while it was too early to make definitive assessments, the United States saw signs that Israel was implementing changes the two sides had discussed to limit civilian casualties. including reducing mass displacement.

Before Israeli forces invaded northern Gaza in late October, Mr. Miller said, they issued a general order for the northern region — home to more than a million people — to evacuate their homes. The release of the map represented “a much more targeted request for evacuations” that was “an improvement over what has happened before.”

But the evacuation orders have left Gazans confused, many of whom cannot access the map or instructions posted by Israel because they have no electricity and poor to non-existent internet and cell phone service. Some who have followed the orders have found themselves in already overcrowded areas without shelter or toilets.

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said warnings are an important way to protect civilians from armed conflict and that a more accurate map was in principle more useful than blanket evacuation orders. But he said Israel’s new system was not much better than what came before it.

“There is no reliable safe road and no reliable safe place in Gaza, period, so even if they tell you this area is relatively safe, the airstrikes continue to hit virtually all parts of Gaza,” he said.

What also endangered civilians, Mr. Shakir said, was Israel’s continued use of bombs and heavy artillery in densely populated areas, a tactic that “increases the risk of civilian deaths.” Moreover, he said, Israel was still demolishing entire apartment buildings without clarifying the military objectives of such attacks.

Israel has said its war is aimed at destroying Hamas and its forces are making great efforts to protect civilians. It blames Hamas for the scale of the destruction in Gaza, saying its fighters are mixing with the civilian population, effectively using them as human shields and fighting from civilian areas.

Health authorities in Gaza say more than 15,000 people have been killed since the war began. Although they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, they say so most of the dead are women and children.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in Dubai on Saturday show restraint by Israeli forces, although she declined to say whether she thought Israel was following them American guidance to fight with greater precision to prevent harm to civilians.

“But I will say that we have been very clear about our position on this, which is that innocent civilian lives should not be deliberately targeted, and that Israel must do more to protect innocent lives,” she said.