IDF drops leaflets, texts, sends recording to Palestinians saying 'leave Gaza now'

Special Unit 504, also known as "the IDF's Mossad," has handled much of the operation given its expertise in Arabic and Palestinian culture.

The IDF on Wednesday announced that it was dropping large numbers of leaflets as well as sending text messages and recorded warnings to Palestinian civilians to leave Gaza City, pending the ever more imminent Israeli ground invasion.

There have also been some direct live calls.

Special Unit 504, also known as "the IDF's Mossad," has handled much of the operation given its expertise in Arabic and Palestinian culture.

At the start of the war, the IDF sent millions of such warnings to Gazans before invading new parts of the Strip.

But after seeing what the IDF did in invading northern Gaza in the fall of 2023, Palestinian civilians mostly complied faster with more general warnings to leave other areas since then, without the need for such a voluminous warning effort.

The IDF on Tuesday morning had issued its largest evacuation order yet for Gaza City, but the warning was a general one on social media, and not a targeted personal warning as on Wednesday.

The scope and immediacy of the order signaled that the military’s full-scale invasion may finally be close, but apparently still required broader efforts on Wednesday.

Until Tuesday, Israeli political and military officials had spent weeks encouraging Palestinian civilians to evacuate Gaza City, but only around 100,000 out of around one million had left, leaving the timing of the invasion in question.

More Palestinians reportedly started to leave after Tuesday's more imminent warning, but apparently not enough, and the IDF decided to carry out a full-scale massive personal warning operation.

Hamas blocks Palestinians from evacuating

A senior defense official has said that Hamas actively blocks many Palestinian civilians from evacuating.

At the start of the war in October 2023, the IDF spent around three weeks pounding Gaza City and nearby areas with aerial bombardments and artillery and tank fire before sending five divisions (between 25,000-50,000) of ground forces in, along with a much larger group of forces that surrounded portions of Gaza.

So far, the IDF has increased its pace of targeting large high-rises in Gaza City but has not yet struck the area with the same level of bombardment. War plans have disclosed that the IDF plans to use up to five divisions again in the full-scale invasion, although some of that may depend on the degree of Hamas resistance.

In October and November 2023, Hamas resisted heavily with around 10,000 terrorists, more than half of whom were killed by the IDF in a short period. However, the terror group has not put up a large-scale defense against an Israeli invasion since the battles of Khan Yunis from December 2023 to February 2024.

Rather, it has been fighting a guerrilla-style war of small terror cells carrying out localized ambushes, such that the five divisions may not be necessary in the end.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that taking over Gaza City will convince Hamas to give up the remaining hostages and will lead to the group’s defeat.

Much of the IDF disagrees and believes that even if taking over the city will harm Hamas’s overall strength, the group will manage to continue its guerrilla-style tactics.

It also says that the invasion may lead to deaths of Israeli hostages and that the cost to soldiers who will die, Palestinian civilians who may get caught in the crossfire, and the potential worsening of the humanitarian situation will harm Israeli legitimacy more than the operation’s expected gains.

The Gaza Humanitarian Forum, a network of Israeli humanitarian groups and experts, stated on Tuesday, “The forced displacement of an entire population – including children, the elderly, and people with disabilities – after months of deteriorating health conditions, food insecurity, and even malnutrition, into overcrowded areas lacking the resources to absorb them, only heightens the risk to their health and to public health overall.

“Such sweeping evacuations deepen the humanitarian crisis and may also undermine the possibility of creating safe and agreed conditions for the release of the hostages held by Hamas. The only viable solution is the establishment of a humanitarian space that meets international standards for the reception of displaced populations, enabling UN agencies, experienced in this field of work, to prepare.”

Palestinian reports have said there has been a spike in civilian deaths in recent days, with dozens being killed on Monday. Those reports do not seriously distinguish between civilians and combatants, but the IDF also has not put out any counter-statements in recent days.

There were mixed reports later on Tuesday that larger numbers of Palestinian civilians were starting to leave Gaza City, but there were also contrary reports that large numbers of civilians were staying put.