GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL 

Streets across Gaza City filled Saturday with families fleeing south, some packed into cars, others on donkey carts, many walking with only bags and blankets. Their destination was the central and southern parts of the enclave. Their reason was fear.

Fresh Israeli warnings of expanded ground operations and strikes on residential towers triggered another exodus, echoing the trauma of past forced displacements. Yet even as convoys moved along al-Rashid coastal road, some residents chose to remain in the city they call home.  

‘No option but to leave’

Abu Mohammed al-Dawoudi, 47, left his Sheikh Radwan apartment with his wife and seven children after days of shelling.

“We no longer feel safe anywhere. Every hour another explosion, another tower collapsing on the people inside,” he told Anadolu. “There is no choice but to flee or to die. The Israeli army spares no one.”

Though he had no clear destination, al-Dawoudi gathered his family and set off south. “Even if there is no shelter waiting, we must try. Staying is no longer an option.”

Nearby, Umm Rami, 38, prepared to leave with her four children. Her husband loaded belongings onto a cart as she recalled Friday’s destruction of the Mushtaha Tower.

“We are terrified the rest of the towers will meet the same fate,” she said. “We don’t know what lies ahead in the south, but we know what staying here means.”  

Fear and defiance

The exodus has revealed a collective dread. Women clutched children, elderly men hobbled with canes, boys dragged suitcases under the shadow of drones overhead. Still, some families, weary of endless displacement, insisted they would stay.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s media office, warned that targeting towers in a city of nearly 1 million people risks “catastrophic mass displacement.” Gaza City, he said, has more than 51,000 residential towers and apartment blocks.

‘Humanitarian zones’ under fire

On Saturday, the Israeli army ordered residents to evacuate “without inspection,” saying it was widening its ground assault under “Operation Gideon’s Chariots II” with the declared aim of occupying Gaza City.

It designated al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, as a “humanitarian zone,” saying it housed field hospitals and aid points. But Palestinians who previously fled there say the area has been bombed repeatedly, killing civilians. Aid groups warn al-Mawasi lacks clean water, food, medicine and functioning hospitals, leaving families reliant on sporadic relief deliveries.

For many Gazans, the warnings feel like a cruel cycle: ordered to leave one area declared “unsafe,” herded into another labeled “safe,” only to see that place bombed as well.  

700 days of war

The genocide in Gaza entered day 700 on Friday, with Israel having killed at least 64,300 Palestinians. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and pushed it toward famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.