The IDF on Tuesday issued the first widespread evacuation order for Gaza City, saying all Palestinian civilians must leave the entire city immediately, ahead of a major military ground offensive against Hamas.
Previous warnings issued by the IDF in recent days had only included specific buildings and the area surrounding them.
“The IDF is determined to defeat Hamas and will operate in the Gaza City area with great force, just as it has throughout the Strip,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, said on X.
Palestinian civilians were instructed to head to the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Strip’s south via the coastal road.
“Remaining in the area is extremely dangerous,” Adraee warned.
The announcement also provided a phone number for Palestinians to “report Hamas roadblocks or attempts by its members to prevent evacuation.”
Last week, Israeli officials accused Hamas of preventing civilians from evacuating Gaza City, saying the terror group was using them as human shields while amplifying claims of “forced displacement” to sway international opinion.
Witnesses said Tuesday Israeli military aircraft dropped hundreds of leaflets on Gaza City, urging residents to flee southwards.
Israel has declared Gaza City, in the north of the territory, a combat zone amid plans for the military to take it over in a campaign to push Hamas into submission. Parts of the city are already considered “red zones” from which Palestinians have been ordered to evacuate ahead of expected heavy fighting.
That has left residents on edge, including many who had returned after fleeing the city in the initial stages of the Israel-Hamas war. With Israeli bulldozers razing the ground in neighborhoods already occupied by the army and some Israeli leaders supporting the mass relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, many fear departing the city now could mean leaving for good.
Additionally, moving can be costly, and space is at a premium in the overcrowded south of the Strip.
Tuesday’s evacuation orders caused panic and confusion among residents of the Strip’s largest urban center.
Some said they would have no choice but to leave for the south, but most said they would stay, as no other place was safe.
“Despite the bombardment in the past week, I have resisted leaving, but now I will go to be with my daughter,” said Um Mohammad, a 55-year-old mother of six.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some 100,000 people had evacuated Gaza City so far, far short of the city’s estimated one million residents.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that the enclave would be reduced to rubble if Hamas, which rules Gaza, doesn’t disarm and free the hostages it has held for 23 months, his latest threat as the military prepared to invade Gaza City and continued to bring down multistory buildings.
In recent days, the IDF has conducted several strikes on Gaza City high-rises it said were used by Hamas to conduct operations against troops, after warning residents to flee.
“An unprecedented hurricane hit Gaza yesterday,” Katz wrote on X. “Thirty multistory terror buildings were attacked and destroyed and dozens more terror targets were bombed and demolished, to thwart infrastructure for observation and terror, and pave the way for ground forces.”
“If Hamas terrorists do not lay down their arms and free all the hostages, they will be destroyed and Gaza will be razed,” Katz said.
The post was accompanied by a video showing the collapse of the al-Ruya tower in Gaza City’s prestigious Rimal neighborhood on Monday.
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said Monday that five high-rises had been destroyed by the Israeli military in the last 72 hours, a tally far smaller than claims from Netanyahu and Katz that dozens such buildings had been hit in recent days.
The five buildings, most of them 10-15 stories, housed some 4,100 people in 209 apartments, said the rescue and emergency body.
Strikes targeting the buildings also destroyed 350 nearby tents sheltering some 3,500 people, it added.
A day after four IDF soldiers were killed in a Hamas attack on the outskirts of Gaza City, the Hamas-run civil defense agency said Israeli airstrikes continued overnight across Gaza City.
“All we hear are bombings and ambulances carrying martyrs,” Laila Saqr, a resident, told AFP by telephone.
Israel has been intensifying its strikes on Gaza City in preparation for an operation to take control of it, despite repeated entreaties from Western nations and aid agencies.
The families of the hostages held in Gaza have said they are deeply concerned for their loved ones as the Gaza City operation intensifies, citing the murder of six hostages in a Rafah tunnel last year as their captors heard Israeli troops nearing.
According to Channel 13 news, the military admits it has incomplete intelligence on the locations of the hostages in Gaza, and has assessed that Hamas may try to move captives into Gaza City ahead of the intensified IDF operation there.
IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir has been widely reported to oppose the Gaza City takeover plan, and has urged ministers from Netanyahu’s hardline cabinet to instead reach a hostage-ceasefire deal.
Zamir has reportedly tried to reassure the families of hostages, saying in a recent meeting with them that “the operation will be conducted by me, with responsibility toward the troops and the hostages,” according to Channel 12 news.