Israel orders full evacuation of Gaza City after threat of ‘hurricane’ assault

Publishing a map indicating Gaza City in its entirety, the Israeli military ordered the city’s one million residents to evacuate toward the coastal Mawasi region in the strip’s south on Tuesday morning.

The escalation came after officials threatened on Monday to heighten the assault on the city.

“To all residents of Gaza City and all its neighborhoods, from the old city and Tuffah in the east to the sea in the west,” read the notice shared by Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee, “evacuate immediately via the Rashid axis toward the humanitarian zone in Mawasi.”

“The IDF is determined to defeat Hamas and will operate in the Gaza City area with great force,” the notice said.

Tuesday morning’s notice followed another night in which Israel’s airstrikes tore through the city once again, striking a family home in the city’s western Shati neighborhood and trapping the 20 people who were inside under the rubble.

People living in the city facing the threat of Israel’s escalation expressed despair at the orders. “Where do we go? There is nowhere,” journalist Ahmed Ibraa said in a post online.

The Palestinian Medical Relief Society told Al Jazeera that evacuating the city’s hospitals is practically impossible and that all healthcare providers are refusing to leave. None of Gaza City’s residents believe that moving south is safe, the organization said.

Despite the severity of Israel’s ground operations targeting homes in the city’s north, northeast and southeast and its unrelenting aerial bombardment that has reached the most crowded western and central neighborhoods over recent days, tens of thousands of families are still living in Gaza City.

Of an initial million people, only an estimated 52,840 people were displaced in August from the governorate in which the city is located, according to the Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster.

Families who were displaced described extreme prices for transport to and accommodation in southern areas of the strip, making the journey impossible for many. Countless others attempted to flee to safety, only to return to the frontlines after finding nowhere safe to stay.

Mawasi, designated by Israel’s military as a “humanitarian zone,” has already reached capacity,  journalist Samah Shaheen told Mada Masr on Monday. Its formerly open spaces are now crammed with tents sheltering around 600,000 people who were displaced by earlier Israeli ground incursions and shelling across the strip.

Instead, many of those displaced from Gaza City’s neighborhoods have sought shelter in the city’s northwest, moving with their tents to the Sudaniya area along the northwestern coastline of Gaza, which the Israeli military has designated a high-risk combat zone.

Shaheen said that the displaced chose the site due to its proximity to the Zikim border crossing, hoping they would be able to access food aid from convoys entering Gaza from Israeli territory.

The Occupation military’s Tuesday evacuation orders for the entire city came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened a “hurricane” of attacks on the city on Monday unless Hamas were to surrender entirely.

“Release the hostages and lay down your weapons,” the minister said, “or Gaza will be destroyed and you will be destroyed,” he threatened, saying the invading military was “preparing to expand the maneuver to overwhelm Gaza.”

United States President Donald Trump also issued an ultimatum Sunday night, publishing a post on Truth Social saying that, “the Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well.” 

“I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” Trump said.

Egyptian officials stated weeks ago that they had submitted a draft ceasefire deal with Hamas’s agreement to Israel. Officials in Tel Aviv are yet to respond.