More than one million people living in Gaza are being told to leave as Israel prepares for a ground offensive in the area.

The UN is reiterating that warning, but reports in the international media say Hamas is calling for residents to stay in their homes.

Some observers are calling for a de-escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas, but a Memorial University professor who specializes in the modern history of the Middle East doubts that’s possible.

Justin Fantauzzo says the scale and intensity of Hamas’ attack on Israel was profound. To illustrate the impact from Israel’s point of view, Fantauzzo compared the percentage of people dead and wounded to Canada’s population.

He says scaling the impact of the attack to the Canadian population, the 1,300 deaths in Israel, which has a population of approximately 9.7 million people, would equate to about 5,000 Canadian dead based on our population of 40 million.

He doesn’t believe that de-escalation is possible at this time.

“There’s simply no way that the Israeli response is going to be tempered by any calls to mediate it.” He says the Israelis have a government that is unsympathetic to Hamas, and Israeli hostages are still being held in the Gaza strip. “It’s really sad to say, but I don’t see any way out of this.”