A map of northern Gaza shows the extent of Israeli forces’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. In the far north of the country, Israeli forces have crossed the border and are conducting operations in three areas to clear Hamas militants. South of Gaza City, Israeli forces have cut a line from Gaza’s eastern border to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, effectively cutting off northern Gaza and encircling Gaza City.
Israel’s armed forces have encircled Gaza City — the largest city in the Gaza Strip — in their assault on Hamas, the military said.
The city in the north of the Gaza Strip has become the focus of the military campaign by Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Palestinian Islamist militant group’s command structure.
On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had reopened an evacuation route for Gazans fleeing south. IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus expressed hope that residents would do so, leaving northern Gaza relatively clear of civilians.
“Then we will continue to fight and take the fight to Hamas wherever they are,” Conricus said in a regular briefing. “Underground, above ground, we'll be less limited or restricted because of the presence of civilians, and we'll be able to dismantle Hamas.”
Since Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza on Oct. 13, the IDF said they had dropped millions of pamphlets, conducted thousands of phone calls and used social media to tell Gazans to move south. Israel said at the time that more than 1 million people would be affected by the order. Hamas vowed to fight to the last drop of blood and told residents not to go.
Maps distributed by the IDF have directed Gazans to different areas of the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Pamphlets dropped in Gaza on Oct. 13 directed people to evacuate south of the Wadi Gaza, a coastal wetland in central Gaza. Other material shared by an IDF Arab media spokesperson on Oct. 16 showed a line far further south, near the northern border of the Khan Younis governorate.
Between those two lines is the Deir al-Balah governorate, an area that houses several U.N. refugee camps, including the Nuseirat, Bureij, Maghazi and Deir al-Balah camps. The camps housed more than 190,000 registered refugees in 2023.
A map shows the Gaza Strip, with the Wadi Gaza in central Gaza marked as the border of the evacuation zone announced by Israel. Also shown are the borders of the governorates in Gaza. Two other maps are also shown, taken from IDF materials which told Gazans where to evacuate to. In an IDF pamphlet dropped in Gaza on Oct. 13, the map shows the Wadi Gaza line. In an infographic shared by the IDF’s Arab media spokesperson on Oct. 16, the line appears to be far further south, in a similar area to the Khan Younis governorate border. The main map shows the area between these lines includes several U.N. refugee camps.
Damage analysis of satellite images of refugee camps both north and south of the Wadi Gaza shows evidence of significant destruction since Israel’s bombing campaign began. In northern Gaza, Israeli air strikes last week devastated parts of Jabalia camp, flattening buildings in a densely populated area where, Palestinian authorities say, at least 195 civilians were killed and scores more are still missing.
Despite Israel’s call to evacuate the north of the enclave, Israeli warplanes have continued to hit sites in southern Gaza, spreading fear among the evacuees that they are just as vulnerable there as they were in their homes in the north.
The IDF has said that, even if Hamas’s main power centre is in Gaza City, it is nonetheless entrenched among the civilian population across the whole enclave.
“Wherever a Hamas target arises, the IDF will strike at it in order to thwart the terrorist capabilities of the group, while taking feasible precautions to mitigate the harm to uninvolved civilians,” the military said on Oct. 25.
On Monday, U.N. agency leaders demanded a humanitarian ceasefire, as health authorities in the enclave said the death toll from Israeli strikes now exceeded 10,000. Among those, 4,104 were children.
Read more: Mapping the conflict in Israel and Gaza.