“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the humanitarian zone,” Avichay Adraee, the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic-language spokesman, posted on social media.
The evacuation order came after a barrage of at least 20 rockets was launched from the Khan Younis area toward Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip earlier Monday, according to Israel’s military. No injuries were reported, and the IDF said it struck back against the sources of the rocket fire.
Small bands of militants are still launching rockets into Israel and targeting troops nearly nine months into the conflict, even as Israel’s military says it has destroyed most of Hamas’s battalions.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that aids Palestinian refugees, said the evacuation order could affect as many as a quarter-million people in Khan Younis — many of whom will struggle to evacuate amid difficult weather and humanitarian conditions. Even if they can leave, she said, it’s not clear where they can safely go.
Noting temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) “every day” in Gaza, Wateridge said: “Even the healthiest people will struggle to make a move in this heat with lack of food, with lack of water.” She added: “And then where do they go? That’s the next question.”
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UNRWA described a massive movement of people on the ground, with chaos and panic spreading.
Among those who fled Khan Younis after the evacuation order was announced were patients and workers at the European Hospital, the largest operational hospital in the Gaza Strip, Yousef Aqqad, the director of the hospital, told The Washington Post.
On Tuesday, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the evacuation order did not apply to employees and patients from the European Hospital. But the clarification appeared to have come too late.
Amid the evacuation orders, however, there has been some effort to address the dire humanitarian situation, as COGAT and the IDF worked on making more water available in Khan Younis buy supplying electricity to the struggling water desalination plant managed by the United Nations.
The plant “supplies drinking water to the areas of Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, and al-Mawasi, where a large percentage of Gazans are currently located,” the two agencies said in a statement Tuesday.
The capacity of the plant is expected to quadruple — from 5,000 cubic meters of drinking water per day to 20,000 cubic meters — after being connected to the new power line from Israel, they said.
“The increase in supply of water is a further step taken to support humanitarian efforts for Gazan residents, and to prevent contamination and outbreaks of disease during the summer months,” they added.
An Israeli official familiar with the operation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss government operations said the fear was that any disease outbreaks “could also endanger the State of Israel and the IDF fighters in Gaza.” He added that the steps were taken in anticipation of deliberations by the International Court of Justice, which is considering a case of crimes against humanity against Israel.
The newspaper Israel Hayom reported that the order to connect the plant to an electricity supply from Israel was given by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The reports provoked anger among Israel’s far-right politicians, with Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop this foolishness.”
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Netanyahu said Monday that Israeli forces were “advancing to the end of the stage of eliminating the Hamas terrorist army,” adding that they will “continue striking its remnants.”
Thousands gathered in Tel Aviv on Monday evening, calling for a hostage deal and an end to the war. “War isn’t a law of nature; it’s a choice. It is possible to make a different choice, and begin making peace,” said one of the main speakers, Yuval Noah Harari, a historian and best-selling author.
Liora Argamani, whose daughter Noa Argamani was rescued by Israeli forces from Hamas captivity last month, has died, according to a statement released by Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. She was terminally ill with cancer and spent her final days with her daughter.
At least 37,900 people have been killed and 87,060 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 320 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
Lior Soroka and Alon Rom contributed to this report.
