On the day it attacked Hamas leadership in Qatar, Israel warned Gaza City residents to evacuate in advance of a major offensive.
Israel on Tuesday ordered the evacuation of the entire city of Gaza, the first time it has done so in the run-up to its planned full invasion of the largest urban center in the Gaza Strip’s north.
Home to roughly 1 million residents before the war, Gaza City still has hundreds of thousands of residents who are enduring famine conditions and fearful of displacement to other parts of an enclave where nowhere has proven safe in Israel’s almost-two-year campaign to destroy Hamas.
Six Palestinians died of hunger on Tuesday, according to Palestinian health authorities, increasing the death toll of starvation victims to 399.
“There’s no place left to go, not in the south, not in the north, nothing,” said Bajess AlKhaledi, a Gaza resident interviewed on Tuesday by Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera English. “We’re completely trapped.”
The evacuation order came the same day Israel launched an attack on Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Some 50,000 have left northern Gaza to areas south, according to the United Nations and partner humanitarian agencies on Sunday. They warn that hundreds of thousands are expected stay put in Gaza City because of logistical and financial difficulties, and that plans for large-scale displacement would amount to forced migration — a war crime under international law.
It remains unclear when the Gaza City invasion will start, though Israel has already called up tens of thousands of reservists and destroyed dozens of high-rise residential towers in recent days.
