IDF tells Gazans to flee entire Rafah area in largest evacuation since fighting resumed
Israel says it is targeting Hamas infrastructure, senior officials in renewed fighting; Red Crescent: bodies of 15 health workers recovered after Israeli strike last week
The Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation warning on Monday for Palestinians in the entire Rafah area in the southern Gaza Strip, saying the military was “returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terror organizations in these areas.”
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of the area to be evacuated, telling Gazans to move to the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast.
It was the most significant evacuation order issued by the IDF since the resumption of the offensive against Hamas earlier this month ended a two-month ceasefire.
The evacuation area covers a large swath of land between Rafah and Khan Younis, where the IDF has so far not operated with ground forces.
The orders came during Eid al-Fitr, a normally festive Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Since resuming operations in the Gaza Strip on March 18, the IDF has said it was targeting senior Hamas political officials and mid-level military commanders, along with the terror group’s infrastructure, including weapon depots and rocket launchers. Members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror groups have also been targeted.
#عاجل ‼️ إلى جميع سكان قطاع غزة المتواجدين في مناطق رفح، بلديات النصر والشوكة والمناطق الاقليمية الشرقية والغربية وأحياء السلام، المنارة وقيزان النجار
⭕️يعود جيش الدفاع الإسرائيلي للقتال بقوة شديدة للقضاء على قدرات المنظمات الإرهابية في هذه المناطق.
⭕️من أجل سلامتكم عليكم… pic.twitter.com/Ps1JvDoJRY
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) March 31, 2025
On Saturday, the military said it had expanded its operations in south Gaza, with troops pushing into Rafah as part of efforts to expand a buffer zone along the borders of the Strip and to eliminate terror infrastructure.
Separately, on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it had recovered the bodies of 15 rescuers killed a week ago when Israeli forces targeted ambulances in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF acknowledged Friday that it had fired on ambulances and fire engines in southern Gaza last week, saying it had mistakenly identified them as “suspicious vehicles.”
According to the military, troops had initially opened fire “toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists” in the Tel Sultan area of southern Gaza.
“A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops… The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists,” the IDF said.
It added that “after an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles… were ambulances and fire trucks,” while condemning “the repeated use” by “terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes.”
The bodies of eight medics from the Red Crescent, six members of Gaza’s civil defense agency and one employee of a UN agency were retrieved, the Red Crescent said in a statement.
It said one medic from the Red Crescent remained missing.
In an earlier statement, the Red Crescent said the bodies “were recovered with difficulty as they were buried in the sand, with some showing signs of decomposition.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency also confirmed that 15 bodies had been recovered, adding that the deceased UN employee was from the agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
In a separate statement issued in Geneva, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it was “outraged” at the deaths of the medics.
“They were humanitarians. They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned [to] their families; they did not,” IFRC secretary general Jagan Chapagain said.
“International Humanitarian Law could not be clearer — civilians must be protected; humanitarians must be protected. Health services must be protected.”
IFRC said the incident represents the single most deadly attack on Red Cross and Red Crescent workers anywhere in the world since 2017.
The @IFRC condemns the killing of eight @PalestineRCS medics in Gaza.
We are heartbroken. These dedicated humanitarians, killed while responding to the wounded, should have been protected.
We mourn their loss and stand with the Palestine Red Crescent.
Full statement:… pic.twitter.com/ohKLIjaW1O
— IFRC (@ifrc) March 30, 2025
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “appalled” that the medics “were killed while carrying out their work” alongside others.
“Their bodies were identified today and have been recovered for dignified burial,” the ICRC said. “The high number of medical personnel killed during this conflict is devastating. The ICRC strongly condemns attacks on health care workers.”
Meanwhile, The IDF said Monday that it had demolished a kilometer-long tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip amid ongoing operations in the area.
Troops of the 252nd Division have been operating in the Strip’s far north and in the Netzarim Corridor area, which the military said was aimed at expanding Israel’s buffer zone with Gaza.
Amid the division’s operations in north and central Gaza, the IDF said troops killed over 50 terror operatives.
In the Beit Lahiya area, a Hamas tunnel which was at least a kilometer long, was destroyed by the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, the military says.
In a separate operation, the troops found a rocket manufacturing site and several launchers, the IDF added.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, at least 921 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its large-scale strikes.
In total, over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 massacre, according to the ministry. The figure cannot be independently verified and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it had killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.
UN warns Gaza is running out of flour
On Sunday night, the United Nations warned that Gaza’s bakeries will run out of flour for bread within a week, saying that agencies have cut food distributions to families in half, markets are empty of most vegetables, and many aid workers cannot move around because of Israeli strikes targeting terror sites.
For four weeks, Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians, citing Hamas’s refusal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal and release more hostages. Israeli officials insist they allowed enough aid in during the two-month ceasefire to last Gaza for several months while accusing Hamas of hoarding supplies for itself.
It is the longest blockade yet of Israel’s 17-month-old campaign against Hamas, with no sign of it ending.
Aid workers are stretching out their supplies but warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition, the UN warned. Eventually, food will run out completely if the flow of aid is not restored because the war has destroyed almost all local food production in Gaza.
The World Food Programme said Thursday that its flour for bakeries is only enough to keep producing bread for 800,000 people a day until Tuesday and that its overall food supplies will last a maximum of two weeks. As a “last resort” once all other food is exhausted, it has emergency stocks of fortified nutritional biscuits for 415,000 people.
The UN added that fuel and medicine will last weeks longer before hitting zero, hospitals are rationing antibiotics and painkillers, and aid groups are shifting limited fuel supplies between multiple needs, all indispensable — trucks to move aid, bakeries to make bread, wells and desalination plants to produce water, hospitals to keep machines running.
Last week, the High Court of Justice ruled unanimously that Israel has taken a variety of steps to provide for the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s civilian population during the war, and that there was no cause for the court to order the government and the army to take any additional action.
Critically, the court stated that the human rights groups which petitioned the court over the humanitarian situation in Gaza had “not even come close” to showing that Israel had violated legal prohibitions on starving a civilian population as a tool of war or as a form of collective punishment.
The Times of Israel Community.