Israel Orders All of Gaza City to Evacuate

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.

Many in the city, including some who have been displaced repeatedly during the war, have expressed exasperation with the demand to evacuate, arguing that nowhere in the enclave is safe.

“Despite the bombardment in the past week, I have resisted leaving, but now I will go to be with my daughter,” a 55-year-old mother of six tells Reuters by text message.

While pictures out of Gaza showed some leaving to the south, there were no immediate signs of a mass exodus in the wake of Israel’s warnings.

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.

Hamas-affiliated media outlets in the Strip reported that dozens of people in Gaza City held a protest, insisting that they would not leave.

Footage showed demonstrators carrying signs reading “We will not leave” and expressing the sentiment that they will only leave when they’re dead.

Public protests are rare in Gaza, and the fact that it was publicized by Hamas media may indicate that the rally was organized by the terror group rather than being a spontaneous demonstration.

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.