Israel orders full evacuation of Gaza City as Netanyahu warns ‘this is only the beginning’

Israel has ordered a complete evacuation of Gaza City, home to around a million Palestinians, ahead of its planned military takeover.

“To all residents of Gaza City and all its neighborhoods, from the Old City and Tuffah in the east to the sea in the west. The IDF is determined to defeat Hamas and will operate in the Gaza City area with great force, just as it did throughout the Strip,” Avichay Adraee, the military’s Arabic spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“For your safety, evacuate immediately via the Rashid axis toward the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi,” he added.

Leaflets carrying the message, which included a map directing residents across northern Gaza to travel westward to the coast before going south, were also dropped across the north.

A man holds one of the leaflets dropped by the Israeli military on Gaza City, urging evacuation south to al-Mawasi, on September 9, 2025.

Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City on Monday, saying “this is only the beginning of the intensified ground maneuver in Gaza City.” The warning came hours after Israel’s military intensified airstrikes on the urban area.

Israel has been targeting high-rise towers in densely populated Gaza City in recent days as it moves forward with plans to occupy the enclave’s largest city.

The military has expanded its military operations in recent weeks to take over and occupy Gaza City, which it claims would defeat Hamas. The military says it now controls 40 percent of the enclave’s largest city.

Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza carry their belongings along the coastal road toward southern Gaza after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders on September 9, 2025.

Jehad Alshrafi/AP

As of Wednesday, only 70,000 Palestinians – less than 10 percent of Gaza’s City’s roughly one million residents – had evacuated, a senior Israeli official said, making up less than 10 percent of the total population. But only 3,000 tents have entered the entire enclave so far, the official said, adding that the goal was to deliver 100,000 tents within three weeks. “We want to flood Gaza with tents,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the United States and Israel plan to expand the number of aid distribution sites run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) from four to 16, an Israeli official told CNN last month. There is no indication yet that the new sites have all been established.

Some Gaza City residents told CNN at the time they would rather die in their homes than to be displaced again.