Imogen James
Live reporter

Image source, Reuters

After a night of strikes, Palestinians in Gaza City awoke to orders from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to evacuate the city.

Leaflets rained down over the rubble, showing a map and the order to leave the city. The military's Arabic spokesman told as many as one million Palestinians living in Gaza's biggest urban centre to evacuate southwards. "Remaining in the area is extremely dangerous," he said.

People are being told to go the al-Mawasi area - a small area the IDF has designated as a "humanitarian zone".

Palestinians fear that these are the last days of the Gaza Strip as they know it, our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams explains.

Israel's plan to conquer Gaza City has also brought international criticism.

The UN has warned an intensification of the offensive on an area where a famine has already been declared will push civilians into an "even deeper catastrophe".

Our live coverage is closing now. For more on these latest developments, you can read the full story.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from London

I’ve been speaking over WhatsApp to contacts in Gaza City as the Israeli military orders all residents to “evacuate immediately”.

Hanaa, a mother of three, tells me she does not know where to take her family, so is holding out until they are in “real danger”.

“If I knew [somewhere to go], I would have left [by now] and taken my family and my children,” she says.

Hanaa lost her own home in Israeli bombing at the beginning of the war and has since been displaced with relatives.

She says “nothing can describe” how she and her loved ones are feeling today.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says 83 people have been killed in the Strip in the last 24 hours.

At least 64,605 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023, the statement says.

It adds that a number of victims remain under rubble with rescue crews currently unable to reach them.

The ministry's numbers are considered reliable by the United Nations and international institutions, however it does not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from London

Image source, Razan/BBC

Student Razan Salha tells me she was displaced from Gaza City two days ago.

“Due to the continuous bombing of Gaza City and the targeting of multi-storey buildings, we were forced to move to Deir al-Balah [in central Gaza],” she says over voice note, adding that she is now sharing a room with around 20 family members.

“We moved by car at a price of $375. Not everyone was displaced – there are still people in Gaza City because they haven’t got any place to go or there is no transportation at a suitable price,” she says.

Razan says the “instability and homelessness” has left her “very, very tired”.

“I’ve lost my hope,” she tells me.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Gaza "is being obliterated, reduced to a wasteland".

Philippe Lazzarini writes on X, external: "Gaza is being emptied from its starving population forced to move into the so called 'humanitarian' area of Mawasi."

"There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone," he writes.

Lazzarini adds that al-Mawasi is "a large and growing camp concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair".

Warnings of famine "have fallen on deaf ears", he adds, and says a ceasefire is needed "before it is way too late".

"End the impunity before atrocities become the new norm," he writes.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), backed by the United Nations, confirmed last month that there is famine in Gaza City.

The report was labelled an "outright lie" by Israel, which has denied there is starvation in the territory.

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent, reporting from Jerusalem

Today’s Israeli military order, coupled with the systematic targeting of buildings housing thousands of Palestinians, mark the latest escalation of an Israeli effort to evacuate all remaining civilians from northern Gaza.

Many have already left, but far greater numbers remain. They include tens of thousands of residents who heeded similar orders in the early weeks of the war but who have vowed not to repeat the experience.

After spending a year or more constantly on the move, in places like Khan Younis, Rafah and al-Mawasi, they flooded back to Gaza City during the ceasefire earlier this year.

They joined several hundred thousand others who had stayed put.

They all know the fate of other places that were evacuated. Some, like Rafah, have been almost obliterated.

Israeli officials have warned that Gaza City will suffer the same fate, which may encourage some to leave but will stiffen the resolve of others to stay.

Once Gaza City is destroyed, the Israeli military is expected to turn its attention to the Strip’s last somewhat intact towns and refugee camps - Deir el-Balah, Nuseirat and Bureij.

Palestinians fear that these are the last days of the Gaza Strip as they know it.

Image source, Reuters

As we've been reporting this morning, the Israeli military has issued evacuation orders to those in Gaza City.

Bajess al-Khaldi tells the Reuters news agency this morning that "there's no place left".

"We’ve become completely trapped," he says.

"They either want to push us out of the Gaza Strip or move us to another place, but there’s nowhere left."

"Even we, in the camp for cancer patients, can’t find any place in the south."

Today's Gaza City evacuation order follows comments from Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, ordering Palestinians to "get out of there".

On Monday, Netanyahu issued a video statement saying it was “only the beginning of the main, intensive operation” alluding to a ground incursion into Gaza City.

"I say to the residents of Gaza, take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned — get out of there," he said.

The IDF is urging Palestinians to move south to al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis, an area it says has tents and aid. The UN has said it is overcrowded and unsafe.

Last week, five children were killed while queuing for water in al-Mawasi. Witnesses said they were struck by an Israeli drone. The Israeli military said that a strike in the area had targeted a "key Hamas terrorist" and that that the incident was "under review".

The new area is also one of the smallest humanitarian zones it has designated, at less than 43 sq km, around 12% of Gaza’s landmass.

Ajith Sunghay, from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), warns the Israeli operation in Gaza City will be "catastrophic".

"What we are going to see is something we haven’t seen before…they’re destroying everything that is needed for civilian survival," he tells the BBC's Newsday.

"All civilian structures, whether it is water tanks, roads, buildings, they’ve all been destroyed…we have seen in the northern part of Gaza they have levelled it, and we fear Gaza City will face the same consequences.”

Thousands of people will be trying to move south, he says, but a certain percentage won't relocate.

They know if they leave, they won't be able to return, he adds.

Gazans are being told to relocate to al-Mawasi, which has been designated by Israel as a humanitarian zone. But Sunghay says: "We should be very clear there is no place in middle or southern Gaza that is safe".

Image source, Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images

Israel has been ramping up its attacks on Gaza City in recent weeks, after it announced plans to take control of the city.

Gaza City - in the north of the Gaza Strip - has been a place where throughout the war many have fled to, to escape attacks elsewhere.

Hundreds of thousands have been living in tents in Gaza City - which is the Strip's largest urban area - after being displaced by the conflict.

In satellite images, rows of these tents have disappeared in the last month following Israeli strikes, our colleagues at BBC Verify have shown.

This is also the city where a famine was confirmed by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) - which is backed by the United Nations.

The leading hunger monitor said in August it found that people living in the Gaza City area are experiencing famine conditions of "starvation, destitution, and death", and around half a million people are suffering from it.

But despite this, people are reluctant to leave. Southern hospitals are overwhelmed, and there's a lack of space to seek shelter.

In its latest update, the Hamas-run health ministry says six more people have died in Gaza due to malnutrition in the past 24 hours.

This brings the total number of deaths due to malnutrition to 399, it adds - including 140 children.

Israel has issued fresh evacuation orders for Gaza City, which the IDF has launched several strikes against in recent days.

Many Palestinians there live in tents, displaced by the conflict, but these have also been damaged by recent strikes.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Omar Al-Qattar / AFP

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

As well as evacuation orders being posted online, Reuters news agency has captured video footage showing hundreds of leaflets floating in the skies above Gaza City.

Those leaflets include a map of the evacuation orders and the same message the Israel Defense Forces are writing online - "evacuate immediately".

In that order, issued by the IDF's Arabic-language spokesperson, it says residents of the city should head towards the humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi.

Ahead of Saturday's strikes on a high-rise tower block, Israel dropped leaflets repeating calls for Palestinians to relocate to what it calls a humanitarian zone in the south.

Wyre Davies
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Reuters

In a statement from its Arabic language spokesman, the IDF’s message was unequivocal: "To all residents and those present in Gaza City and all its areas … for your safety, evacuate immediately.”

The statement continued, “remaining in the area is extremely dangerous”.

Israel is, in effect, ordering as many as one million people to leave the biggest conurbation in the Gaza Strip for what, it says, is the “humanitarian safe zone” of al-Mawasi, further south.

Israel says it will provide food and medical aid there, but al-Mawasi and other designated safe zones have been repeatedly bombed during the war and the UN says nowhere in Gaza can be considered as “safe”.

There are still faint hopes that vague ceasefire proposals put forward by Donald Trump might get Israeli and Hamas negotiators back around the table, but Israeli military activity in and around Gaza City has intensified, including air strikes overnight.

Benjamin Netanyahu said more than 50 buildings had been blown up by the Israeli Air Force in recent days and he said it was “only the beginning of the main, intensive operation” – a ground incursion into Gaza City.

As we just mentioned, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic-language spokesperson has just issued an evacuation order to "all residents" of Gaza City in a post on X.

Avichay Adraee says the evacuation order is directed to "all residents of the city of Gaza and those present in all its neighbourhoods, from the Old City and Tafah to the east and up to the sea to the west".

He adds the military is "determined to eliminate Hamas and will operate in the Gaza city area with great force, as it has operated in various parts of the Strip".

"For your safety, evacuate immediately via the Al-Rashid axis towards the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi," Adraee says, adding "remaining in the area is extremely dangerous".

Image source, Reuters

Israel's military is ordering "all residents" of Gaza City to evacuate ahead of a new offensive, after Israel warned it would step up its military attacks in the strip if Hamas does not free the last hostages it holds.

In a post on X, IDF Arabic-language spokesman says that it will act with "great force" in Gaza City and warned residents to leave.

"The defence forces are determined to defeat Hamas and will act with great force in the Gaza City area," Avichay Adraee writes.

It comes after Israel's security cabinet last month approved a plan to take control of the city, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians reside.

We're going to be bringing you the latest on this development, as well as other updates from across the region - stick with us.