The orders cover large areas in and around Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which suffered widespread destruction during air and ground operations earlier this year. The Israeli Defense Forces said they plan to launch operations there in response to Palestinian rocket fire.

Associated Press footage shows crowds walking down a dusty road filled with piled-up trash and rubble on the side. A few Palestinians are seen using cars, bicycles, donkey carts, and motorbikes to relocate, while many others, including children and elderly, are evacuating on foot.

Those evacuating carried essential items such as small gas cylinders, mattresses, tents, backpacks and blankets, as well as plastic containers and buckets, which are often used to fill up water.

Ghazi Abu Daka, one of the evacuees, told the AP that he and his family have been displaced four times from the eastern part of Khan Younis.

“Every day there is war. Every day there are rockets. There is no safe place in the eastern area. Now, we are displaced in the streets and don’t know where to go,” he said as he carried his son and had a piece of cloth on his head apparently to protect him from excruciating heat.

Yasser Abu Alyan, another evacuee, said he was displaced around six times from the Beni Seheila area east of Khan Younis. He said he took nothing with him except his two little girls: “Everything is gone.”

“There is no safe place. The last time they ordered us to go evacuate to Muwasi and then struck us there,” evacuee Ahmed al-Rakab said as he carried heavy belongings on his back.