Thousands of Palestinians were seen fleeing Gaza City in panic on Tuesday, September 9, after Israel’s military ordered a full evacuation of the territory’s largest urban centre.
Families scrambled to collect their belongings, packing into cars, trucks, and animal-drawn carts. Long convoys stretched south along the coastal highway, while some carried children on foot through rubble-filled streets.
Displaced cancer patient Bajess al-Khaldi told Reuters,“There’s no place left. We’ve become completely trapped. They either want to push us out of the Gaza Strip or move us to another place, but there’s nowhere left. Even we, in the camp for cancer patients, can’t find any place in the south.”
The evacuation order, affecting nearly one million residents, marks the beginning of an expanded ground offensive aimed at capturing Hamas’s final strongholds.
Leaflets were dropped from aircraft and messages shared online warned civilians that staying would be “extremely dangerous.”
In an Arabic-language post on X, Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said forces were “insistent on finishing Hamas and will act in Gaza City with great force.” He urged residents to move immediately to al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian zone on the southern coast.
The military directed civilians to al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian zone on the southern coast.
The United Nations cautioned that the mass uprooting of civilians risks worsening the humanitarian disaster. Gaza’s health ministry reports more than 64,600 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with almost the entire population displaced and vast areas of the enclave reduced to ruins.
