The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometre (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

Further north, airstrikes killed at least five overnight in Zawaida in central Gaza, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies at the hospital. The count, confirmed by Deir al Balah’s Al Aqsa hospital, included a father, mother and three children.

The Israeli war on Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The U.N. estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.