Israeli military urges full evacuation of Gaza City ahead of expanded
military operation
[September 09, 2025]
By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY, and MELANIE LIDMAN
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military urged a full
evacuation of Gaza City on Tuesday morning ahead of its planned expanded
offensive in the northern city, where hundreds of thousands of people
struggle under conditions of famine.
The announcement was the first warning for a full evacuation of the city
in the current round of fighting. Previously, the military has warned
specific sections of Gaza City to evacuate ahead of concentrated
operations or strikes.
Associated Press reporters saw more cars and trucks than previous days
passing from northern to southern Gaza on Tuesday, laden with supplies
and people, but no widespread evacuation.
Israel says multiple towers destroyed in Gaza City
Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said Israel had demolished 30
high-rise buildings in Gaza, which it accused Hamas of using for
military infrastructure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel destroyed at
least 50 “terror towers” that he said are used by Hamas. It was unclear
if the towers Katz referred to are in addition to those announced by
Netanyahu, who called the demolition of the high-rises “only the
introduction, only the beginning of the main intensive operation — the
ground incursion of our forces.”
Over the past days, Israel has destroyed multiple high-rises in Gaza
City, warning that Hamas has installed surveillance equipment in them.
The demolitions are part of Israel ramping up its offensive to take
control of what it portrays as Hamas’ last remaining stronghold, urging
Palestinians to flee parts of Gaza City for a designated humanitarian
zone in the territory’s south.
Despite warnings, few Palestinians have left
Tuesday's warnings were the most widespread evacuation warnings in the
current round of fighting, though Israel's previous warnings to leave
specific neighborhoods have had little impact on a population that is
exhausted from multiple displacements and unclear if moving to southern
Gaza will really be safer.
There are an estimated 1 million Palestinians in the area of north Gaza
around Gaza City, according to both the Israeli military and the United
Nations, around half of Gaza's population of 2.1 million. As of Sept. 7,
a coalition of humanitarian groups tracking movement in northern Gaza
recorded an estimated 97,000 displacements in north Gaza since the start
of the military offensive on Aug. 14. Of those, nearly 50,000 movements
were recorded of people fleeing south. Others were people moving within
northern Gaza.
The data from the coalition, called the Site Management Cluster, tracks
movement from eyewitness accounts, social media posts and information
from partners on the ground, because access to northern Gaza is
restricted.
Military spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee warned last week that the
evacuation of Gaza City was "inevitable,” saying families who move south
would receive humanitarian assistance. But aid groups warned there was
little infrastructure to support them.
Dr. Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa Hospital, said although the
situation in Gaza City was tense, the facility still operates and
receives patients.
“So far, things are as usual,” he told The Associated Press, two hours
after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of Gaza City. “But the
atmosphere is tense and there is great psychological pressure on the
staff and patients.”
He said he didn’t notice displacement in and around the hospital.
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Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza carry their belongings
along the coastal road toward southern Gaza, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025,
after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders from Gaza City. (AP
Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
UN says families can't afford to move
The United Nations humanitarian agency said many families can't evacuate
even if they want to, because displacement sites are overcrowded and
because it can cost more than $1,000 to move to southern Gaza, a
prohibitive cost for many.
A U.N. initiative to bring temporary shelters into Gaza said that more
than 86,000 tents and other supplies were still awaiting clearance to
enter Gaza as of last week.
Mirjana Spoljaric, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross,
warned last month that a mass evacuation of Gaza City was impossible in
a “safe and dignified” way. Spoljaric said no area in Gaza can absorb
such a massive evacuation given the widespread destruction of civilian
infrastructure and the extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and
medical care.
The U.N. agency that oversees Palestinian refugees said Tuesday said
that Israeli attacks on residential towers in Gaza City had displaced
dozens of families, with many of them having been left “on the streets
without shelter or basic necessities.”
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid to Gaza said
1,500 humanitarian aid trucks primarily containing food entered Gaza
last week, and there are plans to bring in 100,000 tents in the coming
weeks, many of which are currently waiting in Jordan. The tents needed
to be adapted to swap metal poles, which COGAT said were repurposed into
rockets used by militants, with plastic poles.
6 Palestinians die of malnutrition
Six Palestinian adults died of causes related to malnutrition and
starvation in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, the territory’s
Health Ministry reported Tuesday. It brought the death toll from
malnutrition-related causes to 259 since late June, when the ministry
started to count fatalities among this age category, it said.
Another 140 children died of malnutrition-related causes since the start
of the war in October 2023, the ministry said.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people on
Oct. 7, 2023, and killed some 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians.
Forty-eight hostages are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed
to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,522 Palestinians,
according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were
civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women
and children. Large parts of major cities have been completely destroyed
and around 90% of the population of some 2 million Palestinians have
been displaced.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated
Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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