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This is the world in brief from the Economist.

Our top stories. Thousands of garsans began evacuating after the Israel defense forces told some 1.1 million Palestinians to relocate from north to south Gaza within 24 hours, ahead of an expected ground invasion.

The UN urged Israel to withdraw the, quote, impossible order.

Hamas, who told Palestinians to ignore the warning, said 70 had been killed by airstrikes while trying to flee.

Israel has deployed tanks on Gaza's borders, as it targets underground tunnels used to hold supplies, fighters and possible hostages.

Hamas said that Israeli airstrikes had killed 13 hostages held in Gaza over the past day.

House Republicans left for the weekend after choosing Jim Jordan, an Ohio conservative as their nominee for Speaker of the American House of Representatives.

He beat Austin Scott, a Georgian congressman, but with 65 votes short of the 217 needed to win on the Full House floor.

On Thursday's Steve Scalice, the initial nominee, dropped out due to a similar lack of support.

Microsoft closed a $75 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard.

After the tech giants revised bid for the video game maker was approved by Britain's anti-trust watchdog, the competition and markets authority.

Microsoft will license cloud streaming rights of Activision titles, such as Call of Duty, to Ubisoft, a French games publisher.

This would prevent Microsoft from having a stranglehold on the market, the CMA said.

Two large American banks reported strong results in the third quarter, boosted by higher interest rates.

JP Morgan Chase, America's biggest bank, saw a 35% increase in profits year on year and Wells Fargo reported a 61% surge.

Separately, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, beat expectations with a profit rise of 13% year on year, helped by the growth in technology services.

Repacutions from the Israel Hamas war have been felt across Europe.

On Friday, a teacher was killed in an attack in France, believed to be linked to the conflict.

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