Israel orders evacuation of area designated as humanitarian zone in Gaza

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation on Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis.

It includes parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area.

It is the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, several Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 20 square mile “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee throughout the war.

Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say.

About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel’s estimates. That is more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said it was increasingly difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order because those sheltering there were constantly being displaced.

“Referring to the orders as evacuation orders don’t do any justice to what this means,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications.

“These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move.”

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages.

About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.