'We Are Not Leaving': Gazans Defiant Amid Israeli Evacuations

Sat Sep 13 2025 06:44:40 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

In the backdrop of escalating tensions and military operations in Gaza City, residents express their determination to stay put despite increasing threats and constraining evacuation orders from the Israeli government.

As Israel intensifies its military operations to reclaim control of Gaza City, residents are defying evacuation orders, insisting they will not leave their homes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a large-scale evacuation plan amidst ongoing airstrikes and military advances, claiming a humanitarian response. However, many residents report being unable to leave due to financial constraints, lack of resources, and a general distrust of the designated evacuation zones.

Israel has ordered the entire population of Gaza City to leave, as its forces prepare to capture the north of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli airstrikes have continued to destroy tower blocks, and the army says it now has operational control of 40% of the city, as ground forces prepare to fight what prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the last important stronghold of Hamas.

Netanyahu this week said 100,000 people had left the city, but up to a million people are still living there – many in tents or shelters. Many of them say they will not – or cannot – leave.

After a strike hit a tower block near his home today, Ammar Sukkar called on Hamas negotiators to come and negotiate from a tent, not from air-conditioned rooms in Qatar – and insisted he would stay in the city.

Whether you like it or not, Netanyahu, we're not leaving, he told a trusted freelancer working for the BBC. Go and deal with Hamas, go and kill them. We're not to blame. And even if we're buried here, we're not leaving. This is my land.

Wael Shaban, also living near the tower that was targeted today, said they had been given 15 minutes to flee before the strike.

When we came back, the tents, the flour, everything has gone. Nothing is left. It's all to pressure us to go south, but we don't have the money to go. We can't even afford flour to eat. Transport to the south costs 1,500 shekels.

Israel's army is telling Gaza City residents that there is plenty of shelter, food and water in so-called humanitarian zones further south.

But aid organisations say the areas they are being sent to are already vastly overcrowded and lack food and medical resources. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said nowhere in Gaza can currently absorb such a large movement of people, describing the mass evacuation plan as unfeasible and incomprehensible.

Israel's army is currently building a new aid distribution site near Rafah, 30km to the south. It says it's also providing thousands of extra tents, and laying a new water pipeline from Egypt.

Military embeds are offered at Israel's discretion, are highly controlled and offer no access to Palestinians or areas not under Israeli military control – but they are currently the only way for BBC journalists to enter Gaza at all.

However, the UN says more than 1,100 people have been killed trying to access aid from GHF sites since they began operating in May.

Lt Col Shoshani said many lessons had been learned in how the sites were set up. You can see the sandbars, concrete walls, making it very clear where you're supposed to go, and making sure people don't approach troops and engage in a dangerous situation, he said.

But some of those now being told to leave Gaza City say it won't be any safer elsewhere, after repeated Israeli strikes on targets in shelters, tents, and designated humanitarian zones.

Now, with prospects of a ceasefire deal dead, and up to a million exhausted Gazans in the line of fire, Netanyahu is telling his critics that one more offensive stands between him and victory over Hamas.