Israeli Army Orders Evacuation of Rafah Ahead of New Offensive

The Israeli army has ramped up its attacks on Hamas, as it targets the terrorist group’s political leaders and seeks to seize and hold Gaza territory.

People fleeing Rafah arrive in Khan Yunis city following new Israeli evacuation orders, in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 31, 2025. Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images

The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on March 31 covering most of Rafah, the largest city in the south of the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urged Palestinians to head to Al Mawasi, a refugee tent city along the coast. The order came during Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of the month-long Ramadan fast.

In an Arabic-language post on social media platform X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichai Adraee, published a map of the area the army wants evacuated. Covering a large swath of land between Rafah and Khan Yunis, it was the most significant evacuation order given since the army resumed its offensive earlier in March.

“The IDF is returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terrorist organizations in these areas,” the IDF said. “For your safety, you must move immediately to the shelters in Al Mawasi.”

The IDF said on March 29 that it sought to expand the security zone in southern Gaza.

Two months of cease-fire ended on March 18, with the two sides having failed to agree on terms to extend it.

The renewed fighting has taken a toll in the area. At least 19 Palestinians, including a Hamas political leader and several women and children, were killed in airstrikes on the night of March 22.

Around the same time, at least 15 medics and emergency responders were killed in southern Gaza. Their bodies were later recovered after having been buried by IDF bulldozers. Eight of them came from the Palestinian Red Crescent, six from the Gaza Civil Defense emergency unit, and one staffer from UNRWA, the UN’s agency handling Palestinian relief.

According to the Times of Israel, the IDF acknowledged on March 28 that it had fired on ambulances and fire engines in southern Gaza after mistakenly identifying them as “suspicious vehicles” moving forward after the IDF had eliminated “several Hamas terrorists” in a firefight in the Tel Sultan area.

The IDF noted the “repeated use” by “terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes.”

In its new offensive, the IDF has targeted Hamas political officials. A senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, acting as prime minister, was killed in the opening assault. His replacement was killed a few days later as well.

Israel launched its first major operation into Rafah on May 6, 2024, an operation that had been delayed for months as the United States sought unsuccessfully to broker a temporary cease-fire for Ramadan that year.

Biden administration officials warned of catastrophic violence if the urban center was attacked. Israeli analysts say that did not come to pass.

However, one strike on May 26, 2024, killed 45 civilians living in a tent city in Rafah after having been previously displaced during the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the air strike a “tragic mistake.”

Palestinians inspect damage at an ambulance repair yard hit in Israeli strikes in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 24, 2025. Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images

The 2024 Rafah attack permitted the IDF to seize control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt, allowing Israel to clamp down on arms smuggling to Hamas. When and how the IDF would withdraw from the corridor has been a bone of contention—both before and during the recently ended cease-fire.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.