Already a subscriber? Make sure to log into your account before viewing this content. You can access your account by hitting the “login” button on the top right corner. Still unable to see the content after signing in? Make sure your card on file is up-to-date.

Israel has officially ordered the full evacuation of Gaza City ahead of a major military operation aimed at seizing control from Hamas.

Getting into it: The evacuation order, issued Tuesday by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), affects nearly one million residents of Gaza City and its surrounding neighborhoods. The directive was delivered through multiple channels: loudspeaker announcements, leaflets, and social media posts in Arabic. In a statement, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said, “To all residents of Gaza City and all its neighborhoods… the IDF is determined to defeat Hamas and will operate in the Gaza City area with great force.”

Residents were instructed to leave immediately via the Rashid coastal highway toward the designated “humanitarian zone” in al-Mawasi, a crowded, under-resourced area in southern Gaza. Despite the scale and urgency of the warning, Israeli officials admitted that only around 70,000 people (less than 10% of the city’s population) had managed to evacuate by Wednesday, citing limited access to transportation, fear, and the lack of safe passage.

Those who remain face a dire dilemma. Many civilians, displaced multiple times already, say they are unwilling or unable to leave. Um Samed, a 59-year-old mother of five, speaking to Reuters, said, “Do I stay and die at home in Gaza City, or follow (Israel’s) orders and leave Gaza and die in the south?”

As people continue to flee, the United Nations and humanitarian agencies have issued grave warnings. “Gaza is being emptied from its starving population forced to move into the so-called ‘humanitarian’ area of Mawasi,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). “There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone.” He described al-Mawasi as “a large and growing camp concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair,” adding that warnings of famine “have fallen on deaf ears” and calling for an immediate ceasefire “before it is way too late.”

Despite this, Israel insists the evacuation is necessary to dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure, which it claims is embedded within Gaza City. The IDF has said that controlling Gaza City is key to defeating the militant group. Israeli leaders also say that they are making humanitarian efforts to accommodate displaced civilians. A senior Israeli official told CNN that Israel plans to provide 100,000 tents to house evacuees in the south within three weeks, with only 3,000 delivered so far.

This all comes as critics argue that these plans are inadequate and unrealistic. Aid groups report that al-Mawasi lacks the infrastructure to support such a massive influx of people, and the limited number of tents currently available has left many families without any form of shelter.