Israel Threatens Gaza City Residents: Flee to the South or Risk Being Killed
Gaza (Quds News Network)- The Israeli military has warned residents of Gaza City to flee south or risk being killed, as it moves forward with plans to occupy the city and forcibly displace one million people, despite warnings that such a plan would amount to a “death sentence”.
The Israeli military has issued another forced displacement threat to all Gaza City residents, warning them to flee south or risk being killed.
The military released a map online, saying everyone must flee via al-Rashid Street to reach the so-called “humanitarian” area in al-Mawasi.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also warned residents of Gaza City on Monday to “leave now.0
“I say to the residents of Gaza, I take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned — leave now!” he said.
On Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a threat to Gaza, warning that a “powerful hurricane” will hit the Palestinian enclave and that “Gaza will be destroyed” and “annihilated.”
Israeli forces have destroyed more than 50 buildings across the Gaza Strip over the past days, while another 100 buildings were partially damaged, including high-rises housing thousands of residents, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson said.
Mahmoud Basal noted that Israeli forces are deliberately targeting buildings surrounded by encampments of displaced people, in what he described as a “systematic” policy aimed at intensifying forced displacement.
He also said Israeli forces are targeting the remaining mosques and stadiums in Gaza City, and said Civil Defense crews received distress calls from citizens trapped under the rubble.
What We Know?
Israel’s Defence Minister warned on Friday, “When the gate is opened, it will not be closed, and [Israeli military] activity will intensify” until Hamas accepts Israel’s conditions for ending the war.
He said that as the military had issued a forced evacuation order for the Mushtaha Tower, a high-rise building in the west of Gaza City, which had been attacked and partially destroyed by Israeli forces earlier in the war.
“We start”, he wrote on X after destroying the Mushtaha Tower.
On Saturday, Israeli forces also flattened the Soussi Tower, a 15-floor building comprising tens of housing units and in front of the UN headquarters in Tal al-Hawa, without giving residents enough time to flee with their belongings. On the same street, there are also universities and an education centre.
It was one of the highest buildings in Gaza City and one of Gaza’s main features. This attack targeted a residential complex comprising three towers. One had been destroyed in 2024, and now the Israeli military has flattened the other two. It is located near the Mushtaha Tower.
The two buildings served as shelters for dozens of displaced Palestinian families in Gaza City.
It is Israel — a state that knows nothing but the making of death and destruction. pic.twitter.com/oBnAwDZbLl
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) September 5, 2025
Israel’s Claims to Target High-Rise Towers
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Friday that the Israeli military will target several buildings in Gaza City over the coming days that he claims are being used by Hamas. The Israeli military did not provide any evidence to support this claim.
The management of the Mashtaha Tower has denied the Israeli claims, adding the building was only accessible to displaced people.
Israeli Plan to Occupy Gaza City
The Israeli attacks and threats came as the military pushed deeper into Gaza City, forcing residents to flee amid intense bombardment as Israel approved plans to seize the City, despite international condemnation from the United Nations and states.
The plan reportedly involves forcing around one million residents southwards before surrounding the city and launching incursions into residential areas, followed by an expansion into refugee camps in central Gaza.
UN secretary-general António Guterres criticized Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, saying the decision marked “a dangerous escalation” that risks “deepening the already catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians”.
That decision “will result in additional forced displacement, killings and massive destruction, compounding the unimaginable suffering of the Palestinian population in Gaza,” he added.
A number of countries, including France, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, have also voiced strong opposition to the Israeli plan.
Gaza’s Ministry of Interior warned that Israel’s planned invasion of Gaza City would amount to a “death sentence”.
Not the First Time
Critics and legal experts say that targeting high-rise buildings is a stark escalation of urban warfare that endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands of people taking refuge around them.
Israel has frequently failed to provide evidence to back up its claims that Hamas is using civilian buildings for military purposes.
It has a track record of conducting hits on residential buildings and towers located within the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s most densely populated areas.
These actions, referred to by the Israeli army as “precision strikes” targeting resistance groups, frequently occur in densely inhabited areas and have resulted in civilian casualties.
Gaza’s civil defense agency denounced Israel’s latest strike on the multistorey tower, saying targeting high-rise buildings is a policy of forced displacement.
“Entire families are thrown into the open without shelter with no safe spaces to go to,” it said, adding the destruction robs Palestinians of their “right to survive and live with dignity”.
The civil defence agency called on the international community to act immediately to halt what it described as an “organised crime”.
“How long will civilians remain without a safe place in this world?”
Gaza’s Government Media Office has rejected Israel’s claims that the high-rising residential buildings flattened in recent strikes were being used by Hamas for military purposes.
“We refute, in full and in detail, the lies and allegations propagated by the Israeli occupation to justify its barbaric aggression,” it said in a statement on Saturday.
“We affirm unequivocally, based on the testimony of the residents of these towers, that they are under surveillance, and only civilians are permitted to enter them.”
The office said Israel’s claims are “part of a systematic policy of deception used by the occupation to justify the targeting of civilians and infrastructure” and that its actions constitute “forced displacement”, which is illegal under international law.
