Palestinians load water containers on the back of a truck as people flee Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip ahead of an Israeli assault on May 11, 2023. AFP
The latest evacuation order, which some residents told AFP they had received via text and audio messages to their phones, comes days after Israeli tanks and troops entered Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, and seized a key crossing on the Egyptian border.
Residents and displaced civilians were told to leave parts of Rafah's Shabura refugee camp, administrative area, Jenina and Khirbet al-Adas neighbourhoods, and head to the coastal "humanitarian area" in Al-Mawasi.
Aid groups and UN officials have warned that the area was already overcrowded and not ready to receive an influx of people.
"At least 300,000 people affected as further areas across GazaStrip receive new evacuation orders today, both towards central Rafah in the south AND Jabalia in north Gaza," the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on X.
Around "150,000 people have now fled Rafah since Monday, looking for safety where there's none," UNRWA added on X.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted the order in Arabic on social media platform X, claiming these areas had "witnessed Hamas terrorist activities in recent days and weeks".
Israel has often claimed Hamas's presence in civilian-packed areas only to go in and kill hundreds of Palestinians, many of them women and children, displaced by Israel's war on Gaza.
Images on social media showed leaflets with the latest order, which the army said in a statement it had distributed in the affected areas.
Saheb al-Hams, a hospital director in Rafah, said in a video message to journalists that "sadly, the Kuwaiti Specialist Hospital is now included in the places threatened with evacuation."
"There is no other place for patients and injured people to go to but this hospital," Hams said, urging "immediate international protection" for the medical facility.
The Israeli army on Monday issued its first evacuation order for parts of eastern Rafah, saying it was in preparation for a widely anticipated ground assault.
Israeli officials have repeatedly vowed to sent ground troops into Rafah, where the majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people have sought shelter.
Adraee said in his statement that evacuation orders were also issued to Palestinians in northern Gaza's Jabalia and Beit Lahia, areas that saw intense fighting in the early stages of the seven-month war.
"You are in a dangerous combat zone," Adraee said.
Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted Jabalia and Beit Lahia, as well as other parts of northern Gaza, since the army launched its ground operation in the besieged territory on October 27.
Israel's seven-month war has killed at least 34,943 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online
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