The Israeli military has issued an unprecedented order for all residents of Gaza City to evacuate their homes, a move that signals an imminent ground assault and has set off a humanitarian crisis of immense scale. The command, which affects more than one million Palestinians, has sparked panic and confusion in the besieged city, with aid organizations and residents saying there is no safe place left to go.
The order, issued in leaflets airdropped across the city, came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned residents to “get out of there,” a final warning before what Defense Minister Israel Katz called a “mighty hurricane” of attacks. The IDF has been intensifying airstrikes on Gaza City in recent days, with Netanyahu stating that forces were “assembling and organizing” for a full-scale ground operation to “obliterate” Hamas.
For the people of Gaza City, the order presents an impossible choice. A significant portion of the city’s population, already displaced multiple times, has nowhere to go. Aid groups like the Norwegian Refugee Council have warned that the directive amounts to a “forcible transfer,” an “atrocity crime” under international law. The designated “humanitarian zone” of Al-Mawasi in the south is already at capacity and has itself been hit by Israeli airstrikes.
“I have been displaced four times,” said Osama, a father of three from Gaza City, in a statement released by the aid group Mercy Corps. “This time feels different, heavier; as if it might be the last.”
The United Nations has warned repeatedly that a mass evacuation of Gaza City under the current conditions is both “unfeasible and incomprehensible.” The entire Gaza Strip is grappling with a severe shortage of food, water, and medicine, and a UN-backed report recently confirmed that famine has taken hold in Gaza City. Aid groups report that roads are destroyed, transportation is prohibitively expensive, and the physical and psychological toll on the population is at a breaking point.
As the world watches, the fate of Gaza City hangs in the balance. The evacuation order, widely seen as the precursor to a final, devastating phase of the war, has been met with international condemnation and calls for an immediate ceasefire. But with both sides dug in—Israel vowing to disarm Hamas and Hamas insisting it will not surrender—the “countdown to zero” continues, and the most devastating chapter of the conflict may be about to begin.