The first time it did not work perfectly.
On October 13, 2023, just one week after Hamas’ surprise attack, the IDF scattered leaflets in the northern Gaza Strip. “Residents of Gaza – move south for your personal safety and the safety of your families. Distance yourselves from Hamas terrorists who use you as human shields,” they read. Hamas tried to prevent the population from evacuating the areas the IDF declared, including parts of Gaza City, but to no avail. Hundreds of thousands of panicked residents quickly packed their belongings and fled to an area that has since become synonymous with a humanitarian space – al-Mawasi.
Images of Palestinian convoys, marching with their belongings along the coast and on Salah al-Din axis, were published worldwide and earned headlines of “second Nakba” in Palestinian media, but the IDF was satisfied. It appeared that the population evacuation operation, the first step toward beginning a wide-scale ground maneuver, worked successfully.
But Southern Command rushed too much. “We closed their exit route too early,” says a source who was involved then in managing the fighting. “The forces maneuvered in a way that blocked the ability of a quarter million people to move south, and they remained trapped.” Consequently, tens of thousands of Gazans who were trapped in the northern Strip in the first months of the war moved within it “from side to side,” in the words of that source, each time the IDF advanced to a new town or neighborhood. “That was our mistake,” he admits.
Since then, lessons have been learned and the IDF, and Southern Command in particular, became more efficient in everything related to the practice of “civilian population displacement for protection purposes,” as it is officially defined. In the coming months, extensive and densely populated areas like Rafah and Khan Younis were almost completely emptied of residents by deliberate design, allowing IDF divisions to maneuver in them more easily, while reducing risk to both fighting forces and non-combatants. Conversely, this practice created moral and legal challenges.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to take over Gaza City (Reuters/Amir Cohen; Oren Ben Hakoon)
Now, ahead of the expected takeover (or conquest, depending on whom you ask) of Gaza City, Southern Command faces its next challenge. In the coming days we are expected to see the beginning of one of the largest population displacement operations so far in the war, as a preliminary step to the ground entry into Gaza. Nearly one million people will be required to evacuate the city and move south beyond the Netzarim corridor, which will constitute the border line above which the fighting will take place.
The entity responsible for this complex evacuation operation is the “Population Relocation Unit” at Southern Command, whose very existence is revealed here for the first time. “This unit has become the national knowledge body for everything related to population displacement,” says a senior reserve officer.
Whispering in the ear
The practice of population relocation began in the First Lebanon War (Operation Peace for the Galilee in 1982), and was upgraded during the two operations conducted in southern Lebanon in the 1990s, “Accountability” and “Grapes of Wrath.” In an article published during Operation Grapes of Wrath, an Israeli officer told that within just two days, about 200,000 residents evacuated from Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, after the IDF contacted them through local radio stations and leaflets dropped from planes. Afterward, the army moved to more aggressive messages.
“We fired smoke shells whose job was to mark, to remind them, to ‘whisper’ to them in their ear,” the officer explained. In the first stage, the shells landed about 100 meters (328 feet) from the outermost house in each village. In the next stage, the distance was reduced to just 20 meters (66 feet).
In 2003, the Americans also used the practice of population displacement in the invasion of Iraq, including when they evacuated about 200,000 people from the city of Fallujah. According to UN data, most residents returned to their homes after the fighting ended, but tens of thousands remained refugees, because they lacked the economic ability to rehabilitate their destroyed homes.
But with all due respect to the West Bank, Lebanon and Iraq, Gaza is a completely different opera. “There’s no comparison,” says a military source. “In Lebanon and the West Bank, people can leave the combat zone and find a temporary solution, for example in a relative’s house. In Gaza, entire families move with tents.”
The explosion is the message
The entity responsible for displacement operations in Gaza is, as mentioned, the “Population Relocation Unit,” which operates at Southern Command headquarters and is commanded by a career officer (a similar unit also exists at Northern Command). In the past, this body operated under the “Influence Complex,” but after the field’s development in recent years, it became an independent body. “As time passed, the subject of population displacement received more attention and became institutionalized,” explains a former IDF source.
The origins date to 2013, when Brigadier General Udi Ben-Mocha was appointed chief of staff at Southern Command. Ben-Mocha began to refine the doctrine of population displacement, as part of operational plans for future ground maneuvering in the Strip. “He took this practice and turned it into an art of war,” says Brigadier General (Res.) Erez Weiner, who during the current war served as commander of the operational planning team at Southern Command.
The methods developed in the unit were first tested partially in Operation “Protective Edge” in 2014, and became an inherent part of the fighting method in Operation “Guardian of the Walls” in 2021. Under them, the Gaza Strip was divided into blocks, whose sector boundaries were based on Gazan logic, not one imposed from outside. “This isn’t the division of a British officer,” as Weiner phrases it. “The block’s outlines match the neighborhood, the clan, the alleys.”
Those who formulated the content of the leaflets were personnel from Unit 504 of Military Intelligence Directorate, which specializes in interrogating prisoners and operating agents. Unit personnel were also responsible for another effort to communicate with the population, which included thousands of text messages and personal phone calls, whose content was tailored to each and every recipient.
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid, unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that was heading to Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025 (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)
By January 2024, the IDF announced that during the war, over 7 million leaflets were dropped, over 13 million text messages were sent, and over 15 million phone calls were made (most with recorded messages). Unit 504 fighters even called on residents to evacuate moments before the entry of maneuvering forces, through loudspeakers placed on IDF vehicles that moved around and within the neighborhoods. Even in this case, the messages were tailored to each neighborhood, based on the clan residing in it.
In the next stage, artillery bombardments that preceded the ground entry and were mainly intended to deter the civilian population, conveyed the clearest message to evacuate. “The IDF activated firepower in Gaza that has not been seen before, certainly not against a civilian population,” says a history officer. “This is probably the best means of persuasion, more than any leaflet.”
“In the end, people don’t rush to give up their homes, so the main means of persuasion is through fear,” explains a former IDF senior who specialized in psychological warfare, a branch from which population displacement methods of operation are derived. “When bombs are falling in such mass, even the wealthiest person leaves home. Additionally, you can turn off the radio, television and finally the lights. All these tools are in the arsenal.”
Finding a single face among a million people
The Population Relocation Unit is responsible for mapping the population and collecting intelligence about it in advance, and for coordinating the operations intended to displace it. It connects for this purpose a large number of elements, including intelligence, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, artillery, air force, ground forces and more. A central part is held by military prosecution personnel, who ensure that actions taken in the field comply with international law (we’ll get to that).
The unit also operates tools to monitor population movement, from the moment it began. “In the current war, the unit was already prepared at the micro-management level of the operation,” says Weiner. “What is the notification process, who notifies, when and how, and how do you track and see that there really is a response on the other side, and that the population is moving. Because ultimately, you need to give an indication of what percentage of residents left, so that certain areas can be opened to fire.”
What is that percentage? Zero? “I don’t think it’s right to get into this, because then you give the enemy tools. But the method is that you activate surveillance, monitoring and control systems over population movement, you build a situation picture, and at any given time the Population Relocation Unit knows how to say what percentage of population remains in each area.”
Another component in population displacement operations are checkpoints, positioned along evacuation routes. The IDF places technological means of facial recognition at these checkpoints, to locate within the civilian stream – which can reach hundreds of thousands of people per day – terror operatives disguising themselves as innocent civilians, and even hostages.
Another source familiar with the unit’s work explains that population displacement comes at the expense of the surprise factor. “Think that when you order the population to evacuate, you expose to the enemy where you plan to maneuver,” he says. “Nevertheless, the IDF understands the importance of the matter. The goal here is not to fulfill an obligation and tell residents ‘we notified you, now it’s your problem,’ and attack. There really is a desire to allow the population to get out.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz with the IDF senior brass approving the Gaza plan (Ariel Hermoni / Defense Ministry)
Despite this, several incidents occurred in which civilians who did not evacuate from their homes were harmed during the fighting. The best-known incident occurred in Khan Younis last May. Nine of the ten children of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, a physician at Nasser Hospital, were killed in an IDF strike carried out in an area that was supposed to be clear of residents. Her husband and 11-year-old son were seriously wounded.
The tragic incident made reverberating headlines worldwide. The IDF claimed then that the strike was carried out from aircraft toward a house, where suspects were located who operated near a ground force, and promised to investigate the incident.
Nevertheless, the IDF marks the field of population displacement as one of the successes of the current war. “It worked excellently throughout the war, despite being told by sources ranging from General Staff elements, through world sources, through American military personnel and all kinds of former officials – that it wouldn’t work,” says Weiner. “At the beginning of the campaign we evacuated about one million people from the northern Strip and Gaza City southward, in short time constants. After that we evacuated 300,000 people from Khan Younis in a very short time, and then we reached the Rafah issue.”
Sources who were involved in the moves that preceded the entry to Rafah define the population evacuation issue as the main “mine” against the American administration, then headed by Biden, which strongly opposed the Israeli entry to the city. “They told us that the people in Rafah had already been uprooted from their homes, so they wouldn’t evacuate again,” says Weiner. “But in the command we built a plan that included two weeks of preparation and another two weeks for the entire evacuation. In retrospect, it took altogether ten days.” During this period, about one million people evacuated from Rafah.
Which brings us back to Gaza City. After the Israeli withdrawal from the Netzarim corridor at the beginning of the year, following the second hostage deal, it became possible for hundreds of thousands of Gazans who evacuated from the city at the beginning of the war to return to it. During Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which began in May 2025, extensive additional population displacement moves were carried out, part of which also evacuated to Gaza City. Now, alongside the al-Mawasi area and the central camps, the city has become the place where most of the Strip’s civilians are concentrated.
According to UN data, about 82% of Strip residents lived before the war in areas the IDF defined as “evacuation zones.” The aid to the millions of displaced residents is an integral part of the principle of population displacement. As Dr. Ron Schleifer, a senior lecturer at Ariel University and the head of the Ariel Research Center for Defense and Communication, as well as an expert in psychological warfare, explains, “No one likes to leave home, so you need to convince them that the alternative to staying is worse than leaving and going into the unknown.”
Smoke rises after an explosion in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, July 22, 2025 (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
An integral part of population displacement is fulfilling the promise that in evacuation areas, that population will receive shelter, food and health services. “You make it clear to them that there is a safe passage through which they can move, and that in the next place they will have food and shelter. You work with both the carrot and the stick,” phrases a former senior in the field of psychological warfare in the IDF.
If the tents run out
Until now, Israel has insisted that the carrot – meaning humanitarian aid to the Strip – be supplied and managed by the UN and international organizations, such as the American foundation GHF, partly for legal reasons. But the humanitarian spaces that the IDF marked did not always prove themselves. Difficulties in transferring and distributing aid led to chaos and claims of acute hunger in Gaza, which Israel has recently struggled to deal with. Additionally, the IDF continued to attack in al-Mawasi, including when it eliminated Hamas seniors who exploited this space to hide, including Mohammed Deif. The result is that now there is concern that Gaza City residents will prefer to stay home, even at the cost of risking their lives, and will not trust the alternative the IDF offers them.
The IDF recognizes that the Gaza evacuation operation will require establishing humanitarian shelters and setting up additional points for food distribution. The army also recognizes that the international humanitarian system in Gaza is worn down, making it difficult to deal with the expected future.
The entity that has already begun acting regarding “the carrot” for Gaza City evacuees is the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. There they are trying in recent days to assist as much as possible to international organizations, to prepare the infrastructure intended to absorb hundreds of thousands of new evacuees. “You cannot move before you ensure that humanitarian infrastructures – food, water, medicine, sanitation – meet international law requirements,” says a source knowledgeable about the subject.
For example, already at the end of July, the coordinator approved, at the political level’s instruction, to advance the Emirati initiative to connect a water line from the desalination facility in Egypt to al-Mawasi. In parallel, a power line was connected from Israel to the southern desalination facility in Gaza, which will allow increasing the drinking water supply in the southern Strip tenfold. This week Israel even approved, for the first time since the ceasefire in March 2025, to bring tents and shelter equipment into the Gaza Strip. “You can’t start moving population and then say ‘oops, there aren’t enough tents,'” explains that source. “So Israel is already preparing the infrastructure for evacuation.”
Recently, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also published a statement that there is an intention to expand the activity of the American humanitarian aid foundation GHF, which currently operates four distribution centers in the Strip, and add 12 additional centers. Behind this stands conversations taking place between the American administration, the UN and Israel, about possible cooperation between the UN and the American foundation, to expand the humanitarian effort in Gaza.
The last fortress
The operational and humanitarian issues now facing the IDF are joined by legal and moral questions that the subject of population displacement generates. International law recognizes the need to evacuate residents from a war zone, but stipulates that such evacuation may be considered legal provided it is temporary evacuation.
Already at the beginning of the war, sharp claims arose that population displacement is a first step, ultimately intended to force Gaza residents to emigrate permanently outside its borders. During Operation Gideon’s Chariots, three reserve fighters even filed a petition to the High Court of Justice, in which they claimed that the operation order violates international law because it imposes expulsion on the population.
The IDF claimed throughout that population displacement is done for temporary purposes, and not as an act intended to encourage emigration, exile or expulsion. According to coordinator data, since the beginning of the war, only about 38,000 Palestinians left Gaza to a third country, all of them those holding dual citizenship, who received a residence permit from another country, or who received approval to evacuate for medical reasons. Official sources admit this week that so far, the attempt to locate a third country that would absorb Palestinian refugees has failed.
Either way, as the war progresses, the legal rope on which the IDF walks regarding population displacement becomes thinner and thinner. Evacuating Gaza City and military takeover of it, according to several sources we spoke with, may finally pull this rope from under the army’s feet.
According to Dr. Schleifer, after evacuating Gaza City “we need to secure fair and equitable food distribution, as much as possible, without profiteering and Hamas involvement.” According to him, past experience proves that all this cannot be done through international elements. “We will need to establish tent cities and care for the civilian population, establish an education system etc., and organize in all aspects of maintaining society. What the State of Israel needs to do for this is revive a military branch that was strangled and discarded – military government.”
But the goal of the Israeli government, at least on the declared level, is that there will be no military government. “We will reach military government, whether we want to or not. We tell ourselves all kinds of stories, but it’s clear we will need to control Gaza, or supervise in some way what happens in the Strip. In my opinion, there is no other solution.”
US President Donald Trump looks on during a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 7, 2025 (EPA / AL DRAGO / POOL)
The IDF can subdue Hamas in Gaza. According to several former IDF sources who dealt with the subject, displacing such a large quantity of civilians to a small area – altogether about 25% of the entire Strip area – will force the IDF to provide evacuees with housing, food and health solutions itself, and will practically drag the army into implementing military government in Gaza, something senior IDF officials have avoided so far. “The IDF is essentially being pushed to make the move, and that’s why it’s so opposed,” says one of them. “The implications of this move are enormous, and could lead to international sanctions and even a refusal movement. Beyond that, there is a scenario where Hamas will hold Gaza City’s population as hostages, and unlike the past, the evacuation will be carried out very slowly and will erode Israeli momentum. So far Hamas has not succeeded in preventing population displacement, but Gaza City is the last compound they have, and most of their forces are concentrated there. They won’t give up easily.”
According to Weiner, these concerns are exaggerated. “To convince Gaza residents to evacuate, two things need to happen,” he says. “One is to ensure that humanitarian aid doesn’t enter Gaza City, but only evacuation areas. The second is to stop talking about a partial deal. We need to say loudly that we don’t intend to stop the move in Gaza, so you better leave, because soon the bombings and bulldozers will arrive.”
