Israel launches major new offensive in Gaza after a wave of airstrikes kill hundreds

The United Nations says 70% of Gaza is already “within Israeli militarized zones, under displacement orders, or both.”

Fresh evacuation orders were issued last week, just days after Israel declared large swathes of Gaza City unsafe.

On Friday, an NBC News team in Gaza captured people moving in search of safety, some driving in battered trucks while others used carts pulled by donkeys, while others fled on foot.

“I’ve been displaced four times, back and forth,” said Yusra Abu Warda from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. “There is no place, no shelter. I will stay on the streets.”

Other residents are have given up on moving despite the evacuation orders, too exhausted or disillusioned to flee yet again.

“Last year, we saw hundreds of thousands forced from area to area, but now people are just too exhausted,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, speaking to NBC News from Amman, Jordan. “They’re just they’re just too tired to move.”

After returning home during a six-week ceasefire in January and February, Wateridge said many Palestinians are now disregarding new orders, uncertain of their safety wherever they move.

“They’re just kind of staying put and accepting that wherever they go, they’re not going to be safe,” she added.

No aid has entered Gaza since March 2, and the risk of famine hangs over Gaza’s population, prompting alarm even among some of Israel’s closest allies.

A U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aims to start work in the enclave by the end of May, transporting aid into Gaza via so-called secure hubs, from which aid groups will handle distribution, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters.

Wateridge said the plan was “essentially using food to bait people, to move people around, to forcibly displaced people.”

“Is this going to be used to move people out of areas? Because if people are starving, of course, they will go,” she said. 

“If the intent was genuine to feed people, that can be done tomorrow,” Wateridge said, referring to existing humanitarian systems that had been effectively distributing aid in the 16 months prior. “So that does beg to question what the intent is.”

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, a claim the group denies.

A senior Israeli security official said last week that the “humanitarian blockade will continue, and only later — after the operational phase begins and a large-scale civilian evacuation to the south is completed — will a humanitarian plan be implemented.”

They added that, unlike in the past, the military “will remain in every area it secures to prevent the return of terror.”

The mass internal displacement of Palestinians comes amid further reports that Palestinians could be relocated outside of Gaza. Earlier this year, Trump said that Jordan and Egypt could take in Palestinians from Gaza.

On Friday, sources told NBC News that the Trump administration may be working on a plan to permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, according to five people with knowledge of the effort.

The plan is under serious enough consideration that the administration has discussed it with Libya’s leadership, two people with direct knowledge of the plans and a former U.S. official said. 

No final agreement has been reached, and Israel has been kept informed of the administration’s discussions, the same three sources said.

The State Department and the National Security Council did not respond to multiple requests for comment. However, after publication, a spokesperson denied the reports were true.