Israel has issued a sweeping order for the total evacuation of Gaza City, instructing its residents to flee westward along Al-Rashid Road toward al-Mawasi. Leaflets were dropped from the sky, complete with QR codes mapping “safe routes,” while the Israeli army declared its intent to escalate operations in the urban heart of the Strip. To more than a million people already displaced, starving, and besieged, this order is another act of lawless cruelty, a move to force Palestinians from their homes under threat of annihilation.
The order comes as famine has been confirmed in Gaza. The world’s top food security body, the IPC, declared in August 2025 that famine exists in Gaza City, with catastrophic hunger spreading south.
Over 641,000 people face “Catastrophe” conditions, and 132,000 children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition through mid-2026. Israel has imposed blockades on food, water, medicine, and fuel, in violation of the most basic laws of war, and openly bragged about it. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant infamously declared: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza… no electricity, no food, no fuel. We are fighting against human animals.”
Such rhetoric strips Palestinians of humanity to rationalize atrocities. Ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Amichai Eliyahu have called for “encouraging migration” or even fantasized about nuclear strikes, while Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly entertained the “voluntary removal” of Gazans, an old Zionist refrain of expelling Arabs. This language, echoed in official orders and military doctrine, is not political hyperbole. It is evidence of intent, the intent to permanently erase a people from their land.
International courts have already spoken. The International Court of Justice ruled in January, March, and May 2024 that Palestinians in Gaza face a plausible risk of genocide and ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid. Israel defied those orders. The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister for war crimes, including using starvation as a method of warfare. Starvation of civilians is not a “strategy.” It is a crime.
Under international law, forcible transfer of civilians is prohibited except under the most limited, temporary conditions. Even then, civilians must be sheltered, protected, and allowed to return home. Israel has met none of these conditions. Evacuation orders in Gaza mean only one thing: driving people into rubble, tents, or open killing zones. Combined with siege warfare, they amount to forcible displacement and ethnic cleansing.
Let us be clear. This is not a “conflict” between two equal sides. This is the deliberate destruction of a people, carried out by a state that has chosen to place itself outside the bounds of law, morality, and humanity. Israel is the enemy of international law, shredding the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, and the Rome Statute in plain sight. The famine, the mass displacement, the killings, and the rhetoric of extermination are not accidents. They are the tools of a genocidal campaign.
The evacuation of Gaza City is not a humanitarian measure. It is the next stage of a calculated program of removal. And every government, institution, or media outlet that pretends otherwise is complicit. History will record this moment not as a tragedy of war but as the systematic destruction of a people. Israel has chosen to wage war not only against Gaza, but against law itself.
Note on Language
Terms like evacuation, safe zones, and humanitarian zones are widely used by Israel, but are disputed by aid organizations and legal experts. These labels mask the coercive nature of forced displacement and the absence of genuine safety. To describe these areas as safe or humanitarian is to obscure the reality that civilians are being compelled into overcrowded, resource-starved regions where survival is uncertain, it is for these reasons that we refuse to use the language used by the Israeli state in our reporting.