The IDF continued an evacuation from northern Gaza, which it has undertaken in several months, on Monday after already evacuating tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians from the area on Sunday.
On Monday, the IDF effectively declared the whole upper half of northern Gaza a closed zone, including Beit Hanoun, Jabalya, Beit Lahiya, and other overlapping areas.
So far, the IDF has left other areas in mid-northern Gaza, like Shejaia, Zeitoun, and Darraj Tuffah, as areas where civilians can remain.
During both Sunday and Monday’s evacuation announcements, the IDF emphasized the opportunity for Palestinian civilians to move to southern Gaza.
Despite assurances on Sunday that the current moves are not part of a greater strategy to empty northern Gaza of civilians, according to the plan recommended by former national security council chief Giora Eiland and hundreds of mid-level reservist officers, Monday’s evacuation order continued to move the area in that direction.
Eiland's idea has been to make northern Gaza free of civilians so that anyone left there could be presumed to be Hamas forces and then killed or arrested. In addition, he presupposes that cutting Hamas off completely from northern Gaza could be another pressure point to force a hostage exchange more on Israel's terms.
Previously, the IDF carried out a similar gradual strategy of emptying southern Lebanon of Lebanese civilians.
The evacuation
At first, the IDF said it was only evacuating certain areas in southern Lebanon and not carrying out a general complete evacuation.
But once most of the Lebanese civilians self-evacuated even from some areas adjacent to the marked evacuation areas, within several days, the IDF ordered a complete evacuation of southern Lebanon.
Also on Monday, the IDF evacuated a part of Khan Yunis known as Bani Suheila from where Hamas fired five rockets at central Israel earlier Monday.
However, this appeared to be a narrower and more temporary tactical evacuation to target and destroy the terror cells relating to the rocket fire.