The IDF on Monday continued the most aggressive northern Gaza evacuation it has undertaken in several months, after already clearing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians from the area on Sunday.
The last time the military evacuated the North in such a large fashion was in October-November 2023, and even a number of evacuations since May have likely been smaller and less intended to last for an extended period.
On Monday, the IDF effectively declared the whole upper half of northern Gaza a closed zone, including Beit Hanun, Jabalya, Beit Lahiya, and other overlapping areas.
So far, the military has left other areas in mid-northern Gaza like Shejaia, Zeitoun, and Darraj Tuffah as ones where civilians can remain.
At the same time, both during Sunday and Monday’s evacuation announcements, the IDF emphasized the opportunity for Palestinian civilians to move to southern Gaza, something it had not focused on in evacuations earlier in 2024.
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 presumes that cutting Hamas off completely from northern Gaza could be another pressure point to force a hostage exchange that would be 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 military said it was only evacuating certain areas in southern Lebanon and not carrying out a general, complete evacuation.
However, once most of the Lebanese civilians evacuated even from some areas adjacent to the marked evacuation areas, within several days, the IDF ordered a full evacuation of southern Lebanon.
Also on Monday, the military evacuated a part of Khan Yunis known as Bani Suheila from where Hamas fired five rockets at central Israel earlier that day.
This appeared to be a narrower and more temporary tactical evacuation to target and destroy the terror cells responsible for the rocket fire.
Hamas officially took credit for the rocket barrage, which had sirens starting at 11 a.m. local time.
Alerts sounded in Tel Aviv, Kfar Chabad, and Rishon Lezion, among other localities in the country’s center.
The military noted that rocket impacts had been identified.
Shortly after the alerts, Magen David Adom said its paramedics, operating in the area of the Sdot Dan Regional Council, were providing medical care and transferring two women in their 30s who sustained light wounds from shrapnel to the Shamir Medical Center.
MDA paramedic Yossi Nabul recounted what he saw upon arriving at the scene.
“We arrived at the scene quickly and saw the two injured women, who were fully conscious and suffering from minor shrapnel wounds. We provided them with initial medical treatment on-site and transported them by MDA ambulance to the hospital, where they were in mild condition. During the treatment, we understood that one of the injured was inside a building, and the other was in an open area nearby,” he said.
MDA added that its paramedics were also treating several people who were suffering from anxiety and had been injured while running to safe rooms in various scenes.
Chabad later reported that there had been a direct hit in Kfar Chabad.
Deputy head of the Sdot Dan Regional Council, Benjamin Lifshitz, told The Jerusalem Post what had occurred in Kfar Chabad following the barrage. “We went outside and rushed to the site, where we found a small crater. Two women, who were inside the house, were wounded by shrapnel,” he said, adding that they had been evacuated to the hospital.
Lifshitz noted that there had been damage to buildings and vehicles, adding, “God knows what could have happened” had there been a hit to a less stable structure.
Police later noted that forces were operating at the scene where shrapnel from an interceptor had impacted the Holon area.
This comes amid the one-year commemoration of the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel.
The IAF intercepted a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen, which activated 193 rocket sirens across the country, including the areas of Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport, on Monday afternoon.
“Following the sirens that sounded in a number of areas in central Israel, the surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen was successfully intercepted by the IAF,” the military later stated.
Video footage from N12 depicts Israelis in Tel Aviv taking cover with their hands over their heads as the sirens go off. The sirens were activated during preparations for the national ceremony on October 7.
“Lie on the ground, put your hands on your head,” a man can be heard yelling in the video as they lay on the exposed ground.
As a result of the sirens, departures and arrivals at Ben-Gurion Airport were temporarily suspended.
Also on Monday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced that hostage Idan Shtivi, 29, who was kidnapped from the site of the Nova music festival to the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, was killed that day, and his body is being held by Hamas.
On October 7, Shtivi arrived at the site of the Nova festival to take photos of his friends who were conducting workshops there. When the attacks began, he helped two people escape before he was kidnapped.
Shtivi leaves behind his parents, Eli and Dalit, three siblings, and his partner, Stav.