The Israeli military has issued an evacuation order covering the entirety of Gaza City for the first time during the current round of fighting, ahead of a planned offensive to take over and occupy the city.
The order on Tuesday caused a scramble in the densely populated city and placed the fate of its 1 million residents in limbo, as they decided whether to be displaced once again or stay amid intensifying Israeli bombing.
Humanitarians have repeatedly warned that the consequences of an offensive on Gaza City – which is in the grips of famine – would be dire for its residents and the strip as a whole. On Tuesday, six more Palestinians died from hunger, bringing the total number of people who have starved to death in Gaza to 399.
“I say to the residents of Gaza, take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned – get out of there!” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said. Israel describes Gaza City as Hamas’s last stronghold.
The Israeli military has for weeks urged residents to go to al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, which it has designated as a humanitarian zone that contains increased services. Despite the campaign to displace the city’s residents, only a small proportion – about 50,000 people – of its 1 million residents have left.
Israel’s planned offensive has garnered a wave of international criticism, with much of the international community urging an immediate ceasefire. On Sunday, the Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, called on Israel to “change course” on its Gaza City invasion, while standing next to his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem.
Aid groups have said that the area does not have the capacity nor services to absorb the renewed wave of displacement and urged Israel to stop its planned assault on Gaza City. Residents have also been skeptical of Israel’s promise of a safe zone, as it continued to bomb al-Mawasi as recently as last week.
The UN has said that it can cost more than $1,000 to move to southern Gaza, an unimaginable price tag for most of Gaza’s residents. Southern Gaza is already packed with people who have already been displaced several times before.
Nonetheless, some residents said they felt they had little choice left but to flee before the Israeli invasion.
“Despite the bombardment in the past week, I have resisted leaving, but now I will go to be with my daughter,” Um Mohammad, a 55-year-old mother of six, told Reuters.
The Israeli military has in recent days intensified its strikes on Gaza City, with Netanyahu saying that it had destroyed 50 “terror towers” in the city, which he said Hamas was using. Israeli strikes and fire killed at least 83 people in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian ministry of health. More were left without homes as a result of the strikes on the towers.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said that the bombing of the towers was “only the introduction” of the invasion, and vowed a “mighty hurricane” if Hamas did not free hostages and surrender.
Netanyahu also said that Israeli forces were massing for a ground manoeuvre into Gaza City, but the invasion had not yet started as of Tuesday.
Hamas was reportedly considering a new US-proposed ceasefire, which Israel had accepted, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said on Monday. The discussions were the first sign of progress on ceasefire negotiations in a month, after Israel did not respond to Hamas’s acceptance of a previous deal.
Israel is insisting that Hamas completely disarm and return the remaining hostages it still holds. Hamas has said it will not lay down its arms unless an independent Palestinian state is established.
At least 64,522 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza over the last 23 months. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.