The Israeli military issued a sweeping evacuation order for Gaza City on Tuesday, signaling that it was moving ahead with its full-scale invasion of the largest city in northern Gaza.
The order will force hundreds of thousands of people to decide whether to risk staying in the city or to flee south to areas that are already overcrowded. Many of those areas are also in ruins.
Alaa Haddad, 29, a resident of Gaza City, said that he and his family were planning to stay in their home for now because they did not know where to go and they could not afford to pay the hundreds of dollars to transport their belongings.
“Where can we go?” he asked. “Even if there is a place, we don’t want to be displaced again because it is degrading and humiliating.”
For weeks, Israel has been preparing to take over Gaza City, intensifying its military offensive there and calling up an additional 60,000 reservists. Israeli officials say that Gaza City is one of the last remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has pushed for a wider offensive on Gaza City, even as senior Israeli security officials have expressed reservations about the plans. International aid agencies and some longstanding allies have also condemned them.
The evacuation order on Tuesday came as indirect cease-fire talks between Hamas and Israel remained stalled.
In a post on social media addressed to “all of the residents of Gaza City and everyone in its neighborhoods,” Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-language spokesman for Israel’s military, said its forces were “insistent on finishing Hamas and will act in Gaza City with great force as it has in the different areas of the strip.”
“For your safety, evacuate immediately,” he added.
Mr. Adraee instructed people to go to a “humanitarian area” south of Gaza City, where he had said last week that efforts were being made to deliver aid. Earlier in the war, the Israeli military told Palestinians to go to the same general region and defined it as a “humanitarian area,” but still conducted airstrikes there.
Residents who have fled south of Gaza City over the past week have reported struggling to find a place to rent. They said many owners of the apartments that remain on the market were demanding sums that were well beyond their means.
Mohammad Fares, 24, said that he spent three days last week looking at apartments in central Gaza but struggled to find anything affordable for his family, which includes his parents and two brothers. It was only after some of his friends pressured a landlord in Deir al-Balah on his behalf that he found a one-room apartment for a price he could manage, $500 a month.
“Getting a place at this price point was more the exception than the rule,” he noted.
Others have said that there is insufficient space to accommodate more tents and makeshift shelters for people from Gaza City, and that it was challenging to find new tents anyway.
Last week, an Israeli security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under military protocol, said that roughly 3,000 tents had entered Gaza recently, adding that the hope was to bring in 100,000 in the coming weeks.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Saturday warned that a further intensification of military operations in Gaza City would cause a “catastrophe” for civilians. It added that the United Nations and its partners would continue operating in the city to provide aid to those who stayed.
On Tuesday, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said on social media that there was “no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone.”
The Israeli military has said that its operation in Gaza City would prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping and planning future attacks, and that it would extend into parts of the city that Israeli soldiers have not previously attacked or held during the war.
The Israeli military has destroyed several prominent, high-rise buildings in the center of the city in the past number of days and has been operating in the Zeitoun district in the southern part of Gaza City in recent weeks. The military said that the buildings were used by Hamas, without providing evidence.
Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, chief spokesman of the military, said last week that Israeli forces had “operational control” of 40 percent of the city and would “expand and intensify” their offensive in the coming days.
The Gazan health ministry said on Tuesday that the bodies of 83 people had arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours. Health officials in Gaza do not differentiate between civilians and combatants in casualty counts.
The war in Gaza was ignited by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which, the Israeli authorities said, about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 others abducted. More than 64,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the ensuing war, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
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