Evacuation Orders, Famine and Targeted Strike Raise Fears of Mass Displacement in Gaza

JERUSALEM — Israel’s order for nearly a million Palestinians to leave Gaza City, combined with famine conditions and the killing of Hamas leaders during ceasefire talks in Qatar, has fueled fears that Palestinians are being pushed toward permanent removal rather than protected through good faith negotiations.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military directed residents and hospital patients in Gaza City to evacuate south into designated “humanitarian zones” near Khan Younis and Rafah. Officials said the areas include field hospitals, desalination plants and food distribution centers.

Aid in these zones is managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-registered nonprofit with reported ties to Israeli partners. The group was established earlier this year to bypass United Nations channels, but its distribution sites have become scenes of violence and chaos. Since May, more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed trying to reach aid convoys, according to health officials. Rights groups say the foundation’s close coordination with Israeli authorities undermines its independence.

The evacuation zone also overlaps with the location once used by a U.S.-built floating dock. Operational for only about 20 days in mid-2024, the pier was dismantled after repeated storm damage and is now stored at the Israeli port of Ashdod. Humanitarian groups criticized its brief lifespan and high cost. Some analysts have suggested the mission looked less like sustained relief and more like a training exercise in logistics. Because the dock remains intact at Ashdod, critics warn it could be redeployed quickly — not to bring in aid, but to facilitate the export of Palestinians who are being driven south into the so-called humanitarian zone.

The relocation directive followed an Israeli airstrike in Doha that killed senior Hamas leaders while they were reviewing a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal. The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London reported that the Trump administration approved the operation in advance, though neither Washington nor Jerusalem has confirmed that publicly. President Trump later said he felt “very badly” about the location of the strike, emphasized it was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision, and pledged to Qatar that such an incident would not recur.

The attack on Hamas’s negotiating team raised immediate questions about whether Israel had any genuine interest in diplomacy. Human rights groups said the combination of evacuation directives, deepening famine and the strike on negotiators undermines the credibility of the entire process. “Negotiations cannot be viewed as serious when key participants are eliminated mid-talks,” Amnesty International said.

The U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification projects more than 640,000 people in Gaza will face catastrophic hunger by the end of September. Gaza’s Health Ministry says nearly 400 people, most of them children, have already died of malnutrition.

Israel maintains that the evacuation and aid zones are meant to protect civilians while it continues operations against Hamas. Aid groups counter that the measures amount to forced displacement under the cover of relief.

The unfolding crisis evokes memories of the 1948 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced. Analysts warn that the combination of famine, evacuation orders, and infrastructure such as the Ashdod-based dock make the parallel increasingly difficult to ignore.