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Israel Orders Palestinians to Leave Gaza City, Saying Those Who Stay Will Be Considered Militants

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
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Israel Orders Palestinians to Leave Gaza City, Saying Those Who Stay Will Be Considered Militants

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Israel's defense minister on Wednesday ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying it was their “last opportunity” and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter and face the “full force” of Israel's latest offensive. 

At least 16 Palestinians were killed across the territory, according to local hospitals, as Hamas weighed a new proposal from US President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war and returning the remaining captives taken in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered it. 

Around 400,000 Palestinians have fled famine-stricken Gaza City since Israel launched a major offensive last month aimed at occupying it, but hundreds of thousands remain, many because they cannot afford to leave or are too weak to make the journey to tent camps in the south. 

“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. “Those who remain in Gaza will be (considered) terrorists and terror supporters.” 

Strike hits school sheltering displaced people  

At least seven people, including first responders, were killed when two Israeli strikes minutes apart hit a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, according to Al-Ahli Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Officials there said more than three dozen people were wounded. 

Five Palestinians were killed later in a strike on people gathered around a drinking water tank elsewhere in Gaza City, the hospital said. Shifa Hospital said a man was killed in a strike on his apartment. Strikes in central Gaza killed another three people, according to Al-Awda Hospital. 

Another strike hit a tent in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, seriously wounding two people, according to hospital officials. 

Earlier on Wednesday at the same hospital, dozens of people attended a funeral service for a Palestinian freelance journalist, Yahya Barzaq. He was killed Tuesday along with five other people in an airstrike while working for Turkish broadcast outlet TRT. 

More than 189 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the outbreak of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Wednesday's strikes or the strike that killed Barzaq. Israel states it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths, saying its fighters are embedded in populated areas. 

The military said sirens sounded in communities near Gaza on Wednesday afternoon, after “two projectiles” crossed into Israel. No injuries were reported. 

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in its toll, but has said women and children make up around half of the dead. 

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. UN agencies and many independent experts view its figures as the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. 

The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel nearly two years ago killed some 1,200 people and 251 others were abducted. Most of the hostages have been freed under previous ceasefire deals, but 48 are still held in Gaza and around 20 believed by Israel to be alive. 

Trump's peace proposal  

On Wednesday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Bader Abdelatty said Trump’s proposal requires more negotiations on certain elements, echoing remarks made by Qatar a day earlier. Hamas said it would study the plan, and it was not clear when it would respond. 

The comments by Qatar and Egypt, two key mediators, appeared to reflect Arab countries’ discontent over the text of the 20-point plan that the White House put out after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced they had agreed on it Monday. 

The plan, which has received wide international support, requires Hamas to release hostages, leave power in Gaza and disarm in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners and an end to fighting. The plan guarantees the flow of humanitarian aid and promises reconstruction in Gaza, placing it and its more than 2 million Palestinians under international governance. However, it sets no path to Palestinian statehood. 

The Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, led by rivals of Hamas, has welcomed the plan, as have Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. 

More roadblocks and a flotilla headed to Gaza 

The Israeli military said that starting at midday Wednesday, it would only allow Palestinians to flee south from Gaza City and not to head north on the only north-south route still open. 

Around 90% of Gaza's population has been displaced in the war, often multiple times, and finding food is a daily struggle for many. On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said intensifying warfare in Gaza City forced it to suspend its operations there and relocate staff to southern Gaza. 

Meanwhile, a widely watched flotilla of activists carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid is sailing toward Gaza, in what organizers have described as the largest attempt to date to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the strip. 

The activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla of about 50 vessels say they expect Israeli authorities to intercept them, as has happened in past flotilla attempts to reach Gaza. On Wednesday, they said two of the vessels were harassed by Israeli warships overnight. 

The core vessels set sail from Barcelona, Spain, on Sept. 1, and the flotilla could reach Gaza shores by Thursday, organizers said. Israeli authorities warned the boats would not be allowed to reach Gaza. 

Thursday is Yom Kippur — the high Jewish holiday of the Day of Atonement — when stores, businesses, public transportation and broadcasting shut down in Israel, beginning around sundown on Wednesday. 

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Arab World

Israeli Settlers Impeded Firefighting Near West Bank Village, Palestinians Say

Smoke rises after Israeli settlers reportedly set fire to agricultural fields surrounding the village of Taybeh, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 10, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises after Israeli settlers reportedly set fire to agricultural fields surrounding the village of Taybeh, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 10, 2026. (AFP)
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Israeli Settlers Impeded Firefighting Near West Bank Village, Palestinians Say

Smoke rises after Israeli settlers reportedly set fire to agricultural fields surrounding the village of Taybeh, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 10, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises after Israeli settlers reportedly set fire to agricultural fields surrounding the village of Taybeh, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 10, 2026. (AFP)

Israeli settlers obstructed Palestinians putting out a large blaze near a Christian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank late on Tuesday, a local priest and Palestinian civil defense firefighters said.

The incident comes amid rising strife in the West Bank, where some Western countries announced sanctions on settler groups this week over violent Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

Father Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Taybeh, said settlers had shot firearms and surrounded people trying to take a water tanker to the site to fight the fire.

The Israeli military also temporarily stopped firefighters reaching the blaze while they arranged security coordination, Palestinian Authority Civil Defense spokesperson Nael ‌al-Azza said.

The firefighters were ‌eventually able to reach the fire and put it out, ‌though ⁠settlers continued trying ⁠to obstruct them, Fawadleh and Azza said.

Israel's military did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the incident.

'ONGOING PATTERN OF INTIMIDATION'

Reuters visited the village on Wednesday and smoke was still rising from a large area of burned hillside.

Fawadleh said he believed the fire was a result of arson, but he did not say who he thought was responsible.

"What we are experiencing is not a series of isolated incidents, but an ⁠ongoing pattern of intimidation and unjustified violence that undermines our ‌fundamental right to safety, security, and dignity," he said ‌in a statement.

The West Bank and Jerusalem are home to around 50,000 Palestinian Christians, members ‌of a religious community there stretching back to antiquity in a region that is ‌home to many of the faith's most important holy sites.

Taybeh is one of the only Christian villages remaining in the West Bank and was visited last year by the Greek Orthodox patriarch and the Roman Catholic cardinal of Jerusalem.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 3.4 million Palestinians ‌in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war, which Palestinians see as part ⁠of a future ⁠state.

A UN inquiry released on Tuesday found that Israeli authorities were directly involved in settler attacks that have killed, injured and displaced Palestinians in the West Bank.

Israel's mission in Geneva rejected that report's findings. Israel says its military and police maintain security in the West Bank and condemn any forms of violence.

Governance in the West Bank has been split since the 1993 Oslo Accords into different zones delineating Israeli military and Palestinian Authority control.

Parts of Taybeh are located in Area B, where the PA runs civil administration but where security control must be coordinated with Israeli authorities.

The movement and deployment of Palestinian emergency responders into Area B generally requires coordination with Israeli security bodies, Palestinians say.

Although the PA has a Civil Defense center in Taybeh, the Israeli military prevented them accessing the site of the fire until the security coordination was complete, Azza said.

Arab World

Asharq Al-Awsat Publishes Palestinian Factions’ Amendment to 8th Clause of Gaza Agreement

Palestinians are seen at a school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday. (AFP)
Palestinians are seen at a school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday. (AFP)
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Asharq Al-Awsat Publishes Palestinian Factions’ Amendment to 8th Clause of Gaza Agreement

Palestinians are seen at a school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday. (AFP)
Palestinians are seen at a school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday. (AFP)

Mediators of Gaza’s fragile ceasefire, along with Palestinian factions, are counting on US President Donald Trump’s administration to press Israel to accept the agreed wording on a 15-point roadmap received by Hamas last April.

Palestinian factions reached “close” positions with mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye on amendments to the roadmap, focusing mainly on the disputed eighth clause on weapons in Gaza.

The amended wording of the eighth clause, seen by Asharq Al-Awsat, calls for the inventorying and storage of weapons, including infrastructure, to be carried out gradually and in stages, according to a timetable.

The process would take place in parallel with Israel’s withdrawal from the areas it controls in the Gaza Strip and the completion of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement with all its requirements.

Those include “the full implementation of the humanitarian protocol, the halt to targeted attacks, Israel’s commitment to withdrawal from the enclave, the entry of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and its assumption of duties, the deployment of the International Stabilization Force, and the dismantling of armed militias.”

The amendment added that implementation shall be carried out through the national committee, with the support of international forces and in cooperation with Palestinian organizations.

All of this comes within the framework of Trump’s plan and in accordance with relevant international resolutions and laws.

Indirect talks between Israel on one side and Hamas and other factions on the other have stalled over moving to new phases of the Gaza ceasefire announced last October, which Israel has repeatedly breached, killing more than 970 Palestinians since then.

The Palestinian side has insisted on implementing the requirements of the first phase, including the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the territory it occupies and the entry of aid and goods into Gaza. Tel Aviv, meanwhile, is pressing for the factions to disarm, describing this as the most prominent provision of the second phase.

Hamas delegation stays in Cairo

According to two Hamas sources and other sources from Palestinian factions involved in the Cairo meetings, the Hamas delegation was asked to stay in Cairo and await the response to the agreed wording.

Other faction delegations that had come from abroad left, while some members who had recently been based in Egypt remained.

A Hamas source said the movement’s delegation in Egypt would likely be asked to hold further consultations with the mediators on some issues that Israel, and even the Trump administration, may object to in the proposed amendments, mainly over the text rather than the substance.

According to the four sources, the mediators told the factions that took part in the meetings that they would seek agreement with the US administration and Israel on the wording reached and would brief them on developments from consultations with all parties.

Another Hamas source said Türkiye was playing “an important and major role” in persuading the US administration, while Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was in direct contact with US envoy Steve Witkoff to push for the success of the important step that had been reached.

Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative for Gaza at the Board of Peace, is expected to arrive in Cairo on Wednesday or Thursday.

But a source close to the Board of Peace team told Asharq Al-Awsat that Mladenov would likely begin his visit “in Israel first, to reach understandings with officials there before moving on to Cairo.”

Palestinian sources were pessimistic about Israel’s response and expected it to be “negative” toward the wording of the roadmap amendments.

Arab World

Attacks on Gulf States...an Obstacle to Egypt-Iran Rapprochement

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during his meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Cairo in December 2024 (Egyptian Presidency)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during his meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Cairo in December 2024 (Egyptian Presidency)
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Attacks on Gulf States...an Obstacle to Egypt-Iran Rapprochement

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during his meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Cairo in December 2024 (Egyptian Presidency)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during his meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Cairo in December 2024 (Egyptian Presidency)

After two years of steadily improving ties that appeared to be moving toward the restoration of full diplomatic relations, Egypt and Iran now seem to be facing a major setback. Egypt views Iran's current war and the subsequent attacks it carried out against Gulf states as a violation of one of its key conditions for fully normalizing relations: that Iran must not threaten the security of the Gulf or the wider region.

In a series of official statements and comments, Egypt has strongly condemned the Iranian attacks targeting Gulf Arab states, describing them as a dangerous escalation, a blatant violation of national sovereignty, and a direct threat to regional security and stability.

In its latest position, Egypt on Wednesday condemned "in the strongest terms" what it described as Iran's attacks on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, saying they constituted "a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of these sisterly states and a highly dangerous escalation that threatens the security and stability of the entire region," according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Egypt stressed that "the security and stability of sisterly Arab states are an integral part of Egyptian and Arab national security," reiterating its categorical rejection of any actions or practices that undermine state sovereignty or threaten territorial integrity and security. It also underscored the importance of de-escalation and respect for international law in order to preserve regional security and stability.

For its part, Iran has been seeking to restore momentum in its relationship with Egypt. On Monday, Iran's mission in Cairo announced that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had met in Tehran with Mojtaba Ferdowsi, head of Iran's Interests Section in Cairo, to discuss the course of bilateral relations.

According to the mission, Ferdowsi briefed Araghchi on the latest developments in relations between the two countries, as well as ongoing political contacts and cooperation in several fields.

The mission said Araghchi emphasized the importance of continuing bilateral consultations, adding that Egypt-Iran relations had made notable progress in recent years and that "continuous dialogue and consultation between Cairo and Tehran constitute an important pillar in supporting efforts for peace and stability in the Middle East."

Egyptian and Iranian presidents and their delegations on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia in October 2024 (Egyptian Presidency)

Bare Minimum

Diplomatic relations between Egypt and Iran were severed in 1979 before being resumed 11 years later at the chargé d'affaires level.

Over the past two years, Egyptian and Iranian officials have held a series of meetings to discuss the possibility of developing relations further. Progress gained momentum in May 2023 following a presidential directive in Iran instructing the Foreign Ministry to take the necessary steps to strengthen relations with Egypt.

The period also saw meetings between the two countries' foreign ministers, as well as encounters between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and both Iran's late president Ebrahim Raisi and current President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Asked about the prospects for advancing bilateral ties under current circumstances, former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed El-Orabi said there was little room at present to speak of further development in Egypt-Iran relations.

"The region is experiencing turmoil that requires maintaining only the minimum level of relations necessary to manage the situation, reduce tensions and prevent further escalation," he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He added: "The situation is not as dynamic as Tehran portrays it. There are certainly contacts and consultations, but they are aimed at addressing concerns that could further destabilize the region, not at deepening relations. Egypt rejects Iran's attacks on Gulf states and has strongly condemned them. That message has reached Iran, which is now trying to restore the level of rapprochement that existed before the current war."

File: The Egyptian Foreign Minister and his Iranian counterpart in Cairo (Egyptian Foreign Ministry)

Tarek Fahmy, professor of political science and international relations at Cairo University, said Egypt had approached Iran cautiously even before the war because of a longstanding lack of trust.

"Even when Iran responded by changing the name of Islambouli Street, named after the assassin of President Anwar Sadat, Egyptian officials stressed that this was not the basis of Egypt's demands for restoring relations with Iran," Fahmy said.

"There were broader political and security requirements related to regional security, foremost among them the security of the Gulf states and non-interference in Arab affairs."

He added that despite Iranian assurances intended to demonstrate goodwill and meet Egypt's requirements, which helped advance relations to some extent, Iran's current war and the subsequent attacks directed at Gulf states prompted Egypt to stand firmly behind Gulf security.

The Message Was Received

During two phone calls with the Iranian president in March and May, Sisi stressed Egypt's categorical rejection of any violation of Gulf states' sovereignty.

"The message has reached Iran, and Tehran has taken notice of it," Fahmy said. "It is now working to address the issue in an effort to restore the trajectory of relations with Cairo."

According to Fahmy, Iran wants Egypt to be one of the principal parties involved in any current or future negotiations with the United States, Israel or the International Atomic Energy Agency because of Egypt's credibility and its ability to maintain channels of communication with all sides.

"Tehran understands that its negotiations cannot rely on Pakistan alone," he said, adding that Iran also views Egypt as a key stabilizing force for regional security and stability.

Nevertheless, Fahmy does not expect Cairo to restore full diplomatic relations with Tehran unless Iran fulfills Egypt's conditions and requirements.

"Egypt will not take that step unless stability and balance are restored in the Gulf and the region as a whole," he said.