Evacuations During the Gaza War

The Gaza War began with the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, which prompted Israel to launch military operations across the Gaza Strip.[3] Within the first days of fighting, more than 423,000 Palestinians had been displaced before the first formal IDF evacuation directive was issued, with more than 270,000 sheltering in UNRWA facilities.[4]

The IDF's stated rationale for directing civilians to move was to minimize noncombatant casualties ahead of escalating operations and to separate the civilian population from Hamas, which the IDF accused of using civilians as human shields.[5] Israel subsequently described its notices as warnings rather than orders, characterizing them as temporary precautions enabling military operations against Hamas while protecting civilians.[6] In a December 2023 foreign-ministry FAQ, Israel reported that, to that point, the IDF had sent over 15 million text messages, made over 12 million pre-recorded calls and over 45,000 individual calls, and airdropped over 4.5 million leaflets—a layered communication system paired with numbered neighborhood maps indicating routes and designated shelter areas.[7]

On the Israeli side of the border, the October 7 attacks immediately triggered the evacuation of communities in the Gaza envelope and northern Israel. Between 200,000 and 250,000 Israelis were officially evacuated or self-evacuated from southern and northern border areas after October 7, including at least 30,000 from Gaza-border communities and more than 80,000 from northern Israel.[8] This was the largest civilian evacuation in Israel's history.[2]

On October 13, 2023, the IDF notified the United Nations that approximately 1.1 million Palestinians living north of Wadi Gaza, including people already sheltering in UN facilities, should relocate to the southern half of the territory within 24 hours.[4][9] The IDF dropped leaflets over Gaza City and urged civilians to move "for their own safety and protection" and to distance themselves from Hamas.[5] IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari subsequently acknowledged that the move would in practice take several days.[10]

The directive immediately drew sharp international objection. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the movement within that timeframe was "impossible" without "devastating humanitarian consequences" and appealed for the order to be rescinded.[4] UNRWA described the call as "horrendous."[4] Egypt's foreign minister said the order contradicted international humanitarian law; Jordan's King Abdullah II opposed the uprooting of Palestinians and said Jordan and Egypt would not accept refugees from Gaza; Qatar also opposed forced expulsion.[11] The UN and EU disputed the feasibility of moving more than a million people so quickly, citing bombardment, damaged roads, and shortages of fuel, electricity, water, and food.[12] Al-Shifa Hospital said evacuation was impossible for its patients and staff, with approximately 40,000 displaced civilians sheltering on its grounds.[12]

Hamas responded by broadcasting messages from mosques urging residents to remain in place, and Hamas representatives characterized the directive as Israeli evacuation propaganda.[13][14] The IDF alleged that Hamas actively obstructed departures; it released a recording it said captured a Jabalia resident describing roadblocks and the confiscation of belongings and car keys at a shelter.[14] A Hamas official denied the allegation, and two residents quoted in reporting said no one had physically stopped them from leaving.[15]

On October 14, the IDF directed northern Gaza residents to use designated corridors to move south during specified daytime hours, saying those roads would be permitted for use without harm during that period.[12] On October 15, the IDF announced an additional three-hour window, from 10:00 to 13:00, for movement south along Salah al-Din Road, which runs the full length of the Strip.[14] Residents fled south in large numbers in the days following the initial directive; UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini described the scene by saying "a river of people continues to flow south."[11] By October 16, UNRWA reported that at least one million people had been forced to flee their homes and that about 400,000 were sheltering in UNRWA facilities across Gaza, amid severe shortages of water, fuel, food, and medicine.[11]

Humanitarian experts questioned whether the movement was feasible: civilians had already endured days of bombardment, and southern Gaza had significantly less residential and health-care infrastructure than the north. Particularly vulnerable were medically compromised people, older people, people with disabilities and their caregivers, and families with young children, all of whom faced a choice between remaining in a zone of intensifying conflict and moving south under dangerous conditions to areas with weaker infrastructure.[16] UN Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings captured the dilemma, saying that people faced "nothing but impossible choices" when routes were affected by fighting, essential supplies were lacking, and there were no assurances of return.[15]

On November 4, 2023, Israel opened a three-hour corridor for movement from northern Gaza toward the south; operations were subsequently suspended for several hours on following days to facilitate movement, with an Arabic-language IDF message directing residents to use Salah al-Din Road between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.[17] Nonetheless, reports from November 9 described continued clashes and shelling on and around roads used for evacuations, with corpses alongside the roads, and media reports recorded Israeli strikes killing or injuring evacuees traveling in convoys.[18] More than one-third of Palestinian casualties as of November 15 were in areas south of where the Israeli military had ordered evacuations, according to UNOCHA data from Gaza's Hamas-led Ministry of Health.[18]

By November 6, 2023, roughly 1.5 million people—nearly three-fourths of Gaza's approximately 2.1 million residents—had been displaced from their homes.[3] An estimated 300,000 internally displaced people remained in northern Gaza, described as particularly vulnerable and disconnected from the limited life-sustaining supplies entering through the south.[3]

Tens of thousands of evacuees had meanwhile returned north: UN monitors estimated approximately 30,000 returnees, driven by bombardment and overcrowded shelters in the south.[15] By November 20, UNRWA estimated that approximately 1.7 million Gazans had been displaced.[17]

As Israeli forces advanced south to Khan Younis in November 2023, Rafah emerged as a refuge. More than half of Gaza's population crowded into the city, which had become one of the few places to avoid a ground offensive.[19] After fighting resumed in December 2023, a large additional number of civilians fled to Rafah.[19] On November 19, 2023, 31 babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital to a hospital in southern Gaza; more than 250 patients and 20 health workers remained, with further evacuations expected to take several days because of security and logistical constraints.[17]

By year's end 2023, UNRWA reported that up to 1.9 million people—more than 85 percent of Gaza's population—had been displaced across the Strip, many of them multiple times. UNRWA was sheltering more than 1.3 million displaced people in 133 installations.[20] People were driven into increasingly crowded areas with limited or no food, water, toilet facilities, and medical care.[20]

The October 7 attacks simultaneously triggered the largest civilian evacuation in Israel's history. By November 1, 2023, approximately 253,000 Israelis had been told to evacuate or had moved on their own initiative.[2] Of these, around 94,000 had been evacuated or moved voluntarily to another community, some 88,000 were relocated to hotels, and around 70,000 made their own arrangements.[2] Orders for hotel-dwelling evacuees were extended to July 7, 2024, while Ashkelon residents were notified they could return in November 2023.[2]

By January 2024, the state had evacuated tens of thousands of residents from communities up to seven kilometers from the border after the October 7 attack, turning the area into a closed military zone.[21] A government plan aimed to enable gradual returns for communities four kilometers or more from the border, with an initial phase covering six communities subject to security adjustments and residents' individual choice; communities within four kilometers were not covered at that stage.[21]

A peer-reviewed study surveying 372 evacuees from Israel's southern and northern border areas in March 2024 found that evacuees reported lower societal and community resilience, hope, and morale, and higher distress symptoms and perceived danger, than the general Israeli population sample.[22] The study found that governmental support was the primary predictor of societal resilience among evacuees, and its authors concluded that adapting to a wartime emergency routine was more complex for this population and cautioned that evacuees are a heterogeneous group whose needs require more detailed assessment.[22]

A year after the October 7 attack, the Tekuma Administration reported that approximately 64,000 residents had been forced to leave their homes in the Gaza border area, and nearly 50,000 had returned by October 1, 2024.[23] Those who had not returned were living in alternative communities or rented apartments elsewhere in Israel; how many would return after reconstruction—expected to take at least two more years—remained unclear. The Tekuma Administration's 2024 budget was approximately NIS 7 billion.[23]

Close to 90,000 Israelis remained internally displaced at the end of June 2024, a population whose displacement resulted from Hamas and Hezbollah attacks on border communities.[8] A March 2024 Jewish Review of Books essay described evacuated families as having left their homes without time to collect documents, keepsakes, or a change of clothes; it said that five months after October 7 almost none had returned and that families were still living in hotels, makeshift homes, and host kibbutzim.[20]

Evacuation orders were not confined to the initial northern Gaza directive. Throughout 2024, the IDF issued successive notices affecting different parts of Gaza as military operations shifted southward and then returned north.

By January 2024, approximately 1.9 million people—85 percent of Gaza's population—were displaced, with approximately 1.4 million sheltering in 155 UNRWA facilities; approximately one million displaced people had arrived in the Rafah area, where conditions were described as extremely crowded.[24] Local movement continued within central Gaza: more than half of al-Maghazi's residents had evacuated toward Deir al-Balah and southern Gaza, and Nuseirat residents were evacuating following increased IDF activity.[24]

In mid-March 2024, facing pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden over civilian protection, the IDF said it would move a portion of Rafah's civilians to "humanitarian islands" it would establish in central Gaza.[25] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the purchase of 40,000 tents from China for use in Gaza as part of preparations for a possible Rafah operation.[26]

On July 27, the IDF ordered evacuation of southern Khan Yunis neighborhoods; the following day, Palestinian sources reported orders affecting al-Bureij, al-Dawah, and eastern parts of al-Nuseirat, with thousands documented leaving.[27] On August 22–24, IDF Arabic-language notices addressed al-Maghazi and neighborhoods of Deir al-Balah; Deir al-Balah's municipality said nearly 250,000 people had to evacuate within 72 hours and warned that the area's only government hospital, serving more than half of Gaza's population, was threatened.[27]

By August 2024, UN humanitarian official Muhannad Hadi said successive evacuation orders—12 issued that month alone—had displaced roughly 90 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million residents since the start of the war. Families were often made to flee again, sometimes under fire, into a crowded and shrinking area.[28] The designated humanitarian zone had changed size multiple times and was then about 42 square kilometers, or roughly 11 percent of the Strip; IDF estimates put about 1.9 million people there.[28] Evacuation orders had cost the World Food Program access to a warehouse in Deir al-Balah and led to the evacuation of five community kitchens.[28]

On November 6, 2024, Israel and the World Health Organization evacuated 231 Gazans, including patients and caregivers, to the United Arab Emirates and Romania for medical treatment.[17] An Israeli military campaign in northern Gaza that began in October 2024 reportedly coincided with a complete stoppage of humanitarian convoys to the area; some convoys later entered, while the U.S. Department of State called for further changes.[29] In a November 2024 response to a U.S. letter, Israeli officials affirmed that Israel had "no policy of forced evacuation of civilians from anywhere in the Gaza Strip, including northern Gaza."[29]

Rafah's pre-war population of approximately 250,000 had reached about 1.3 million at the peak of the war, with most of the additional population displaced from northern and central Gaza amid fighting and Israeli calls to move south.[30] Many stayed in tents in parks, stadiums, and public squares; others crowded into apartments and relatives' homes.[30] Nearly 1.4 million civilians were sheltering in Rafah when Israeli forces began their advance, approximately one million of whom had previously been displaced from farther north.[16]

On May 6, 2024, the IDF began directing civilians from eastern Rafah toward an expanded humanitarian zone in Mawasi Khan Yunis, an area of 31 square kilometers that had been home to about 64,000 Palestinians before October 7.[31] Notices were delivered by leaflets, text messages, and phone calls, and the IDF said it was coordinating with international organizations.[32] The initial May 6 directive covered nine blocks in eastern Rafah; on May 11, additional instructions covered 12 Rafah neighborhoods and six square kilometers.[31] Ahmed al-Sufi, head of Rafah's Hamas-affiliated municipality, estimated that about 150,000 local residents and displaced people were required to leave; UNRWA reported that at least 80,000 had evacuated in the three days after the warning.[32]

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said on May 6 that the announcement covered a significant portion of Rafah—not the whole city—and involved about 100,000 people.[33] The United States said it could not support a Rafah operation as then envisioned, had not seen a credible, implementable humanitarian plan, and raised concerns about limited places for people to go within Gaza and about access to shelter, sanitation, and aid.[33]

Israeli forces moved to take control of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor on May 7 and entered Rafah on May 14.[19] By May 18, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini reported that 800,000 people had left Rafah since May 6—nearly half of the city's civilian population—with most moving to Khan Younis or other parts of central Gaza.[34] The IDF estimated that around 950,000 Palestinian civilians had left Rafah within two weeks of the operation's start, with the overwhelming majority moving northwest to al-Muwasi; the IDF estimated that about 60–70 percent of Rafah had been evacuated by May 20 and that around 300,000–400,000 civilians remained, mostly near the coast in the Tel al-Sultan area.[35]

By May 29, UNRWA estimated that nearly 945,000 people had been displaced from Rafah since May 6; approximately 200,000 remained in Rafah, concentrated mainly in its western part.[31] By mid-June 2024, more than one million people had fled Rafah, mostly toward Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah, overburdening already overcrowded and resource-depleted areas.[31]

The IPC Famine Review Committee's June 2024 report documented severe humanitarian consequences of the Rafah movement. Many people moving toward the Deir al-Balah–Rafah area reported being unable to carry food and water with them.[31] Crowding, limited supplies, and damaged infrastructure in receiving areas increased the risk of epidemic outbreaks and rapid deterioration in living conditions.[31] Families displaced multiple times were forced to move again amid continuing operations and new orders.[31] Displaced people already encamped in western Rafah told Palestinian media they had nowhere to go if another evacuation were ordered and preferred to remain where they were.[32]

A State Department spokesperson said at a May 28 briefing that people who had left Rafah had gone to several places—Khan Yunis, western Rafah, and Mawasi—and that there was not one answer to where they had gone. The United States did not know how much the IDF was assisting them and said the humanitarian situation remained extremely challenging. The spokesperson also said Israel should not carry out strikes in designated safer areas to which it had directed people.[36] In what became a significant controversy, at least 90 people were killed and 300 injured in an IDF airstrike on al-Mawasi on July 13; the IDF confirmed it had targeted Hamas leaders and others it described as terrorists in what it called a targeted operation informed by an intelligence assessment.[18]

On January 27, 2025, after IDF forces withdrew from parts of the Netzarim Corridor, crossings opened for people returning from southern to northern Gaza. People could cross on foot via al-Rashid Street; Salah al-Din Street opened to vehicles about two hours later, with vehicles subject to electronic inspection. The Hamas government media information office reported that more than 300,000 displaced people had returned to Gaza City and northern Gaza that day.[37]

In March 2025, the IDF Arabic spokesperson issued an evacuation order covering all of Rafah and three neighborhoods south of Khan Yunis; thousands left, though no precise count or stated destination was reported.[38] Hamas condemned the order as a "crime of forced displacement."[38]

On May 22, 2025, the IDF issued an evacuation notice for numerous northern Gaza neighborhoods and Jabaliya, directing residents south; a May 26 notice covered the entire Khan Yunis area, which the IDF Arabic spokesperson designated a "dangerous kill zone."[39] No count of people affected by either order was given.[39]

In September 2025, the IDF ordered approximately one million residents of Gaza City to evacuate ahead of a new offensive. The IDF used voice messages, leaflets, text messages, and phone calls to urge residents to move to al-Mawasi near Khan Yunis.[40] The IDF said more than 750,000 people had left Gaza City by September 27; Hamas's government media information office claimed that 335,000 had been forced to leave and that more than 900,000 remained.[40] Separately, the military estimated that more than 370,000 had left by the time the offensive began, while a UN estimate covering northern Gaza over a broader prior month counted around 220,000 departures—figures referring to different reporting scopes and periods.[41]

The UN said many people in Gaza City found it "simply impossible" to comply with the September 2025 order. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric cited transport costing over $1,000, a barely passable coastal road, and overcrowded displacement sites in the south; many people had already been displaced repeatedly and were exhausted, short of money, and hungry.[42] The UN reported that roughly 9,400 people had left northern Gaza for the south on the day of the announcement, bringing the total displaced since mid-August to nearly 62,000, and warned that safety was not guaranteed anywhere in the Strip.[42]

Practical obstacles were severe. Residents said transport and shelter were costly, tents and places to pitch them were scarce, and some people who went south returned after failing to find space.[41] The Palestine Shelter Cluster estimated that 1.4 million people needed emergency shelter and that 3,500 truckloads of shelter items were required; it reported that only 208 tents had entered Gaza between August 16 and September 3.[41] COGAT, by contrast, said around 14,000 tents had entered during a two-week period.[41] A UN official described people moving south and then north again in search of somewhere to live.[41]

An INSS analysis of Operation Gideon's Chariots described reports of a plan to move civilians from combat zones across roughly 70 percent of Gaza and concentrate them in designated areas. The INSS authors noted that the reported plan did not clearly establish that the movement would be temporary or that residents could return, and raised concerns about the scale, concentration of people, humanitarian provision, and political statements about "voluntary emigration."[43]

Throughout the war, the IDF used a layered system to communicate evacuation directives. Methods included Arabic-language leaflets dropped from aircraft, pre-recorded phone calls, text messages to mobile phones, individual phone calls, and voice messages broadcast by drone.[7][40] By December 2023, the IDF reported having sent over 15 million text messages, made over 12 million pre-recorded calls and over 45,000 individual calls, and airdropped over 4.5 million leaflets.[7]

Beginning December 1, 2023, the IDF publicly circulated geospatial polygons described as targeting zones in Gaza. A Ben-Gurion University research team created a digital dataset to make those polygons more usable by affected members of the public, humanitarian agencies, and researchers.[44] The IDF also employed a numbered neighborhood-map system intended to communicate which areas were affected, which routes to use, and where shelters could be accessed.[7]

Israel's stated position, presented in a Jewish Virtual Library compilation of Israeli commitments, was that its notices were warnings urging civilians to move away from areas of intense hostilities, not orders forcing them to leave. Israel said civilians who remained were taken into account in operational planning, including for humanitarian assistance.[6]

By the end of 2024, the United Nations calculated that 90 percent of Gaza's population had at some point been displaced under an IDF evacuation order—a figure referring to cumulative displacement over the course of the war, not to the number of people who remained displaced at year's end.[1][45] At various points, the designated humanitarian zone shrank to as little as approximately 42 square kilometers, roughly 11 percent of the Gaza Strip's total area, into which the IDF estimated roughly 1.9 million people had been crowded.[28]

The humanitarian consequences of successive waves of displacement were severe and cumulative. People moving between zones reported being unable to carry food or water.[31] Areas receiving large numbers of evacuees—al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis—experienced rapid deterioration of water, sanitation, shelter, and health infrastructure.[31] The risk of epidemic outbreaks rose with crowding and damaged services.[31] The World Food Program lost warehouse access, five community kitchens were evacuated, and the Palestine Shelter Cluster estimated a deficit of thousands of truckloads of shelter materials.[28][41]

On November 6, 2024, Israel and the World Health Organization cooperated to evacuate 231 Gazans requiring medical care to the United Arab Emirates and Romania.[17]

On the Israeli side, the return of displaced border-area residents was gradual and incomplete. Nearly 50,000 of the approximately 64,000 Gaza-envelope residents had returned by October 1, 2024, while those who had not were living in alternative communities or rented apartments, with reconstruction expected to take at least two more years.[23] Ben-Gurion University researchers found that Israeli evacuees experienced a disproportionately severe psychological impact compared with the general population, reporting lower societal and community resilience, higher distress, and greater perceived danger. Governmental support was the primary predictor of societal resilience among the evacuee sample.[22]

The legal and political character of the evacuation directives has been deeply contested throughout the war. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the instruction for Gaza City's population to leave immediately, "coupled with the complete siege explicitly denying them food, water, and electricity," was not compatible with international humanitarian law.[9] Amnesty International and other NGOs said the October 13, 2023, order could not be considered an effective warning and might amount to forced displacement.[9] The State Department's 2023 report records that NGOs reported subsequent IDF orders in other parts of Gaza led to repeated forced displacement.[9]

Human Rights Watch's 2024 report alleged that Israeli evacuation orders and military operations amounted to forcible transfer, and that actions in areas where Palestinians could not return appeared to meet the definition of ethnic cleansing.[42] Israel and the IDF rejected those allegations, describing warnings as temporary precautions intended to protect civilians and permit operations against Hamas.[42] Israeli officials affirmed in November 2024 that Israel had "no policy of forced evacuation of civilians from anywhere in the Gaza Strip."[29]

An INSS legal analysis noted that evacuation from combat zones can be lawful if temporary, protective, and conducted along accessible routes to safer areas, while forced evacuation intended to drive civilians out of Gaza is unlawful. The INSS authors raised concerns that the scale of reported plans, the concentration of displaced people, inadequate humanitarian provision, and political statements about "voluntary emigration" did not clearly establish that movement would be temporary.[43] This constitutes a legal and policy analysis, not a judicial determination.

Displacement figures themselves were contested. The IDF's September 2025 estimate that more than 750,000 Gaza City residents had evacuated differed markedly from the Hamas government media office's claim of 335,000 displaced.[40] Figures for the May 2024 Rafah evacuation varied similarly: the State Department described the initial announcement as affecting about 100,000 people, while later CRS reporting described approximately one million people leaving Rafah during May.[33][16] The State Department's own 2023 report gave two different estimates for the October 13 order—1.1 million in one passage and 1.2 million in another.[9]

Allegations that Hamas prevented civilians from evacuating were also disputed. The IDF alleged obstruction and released a recording it said captured a resident describing roadblocks and confiscated belongings; a Hamas official denied the allegation, and some residents quoted in reporting said no one had physically stopped them from leaving.[15][14]