Yellow Line Advances in Gaza, Redrawing New Displacement Maps
Displacement in Gaza is no longer linked solely to Israeli bombardments; it is now being renewed with every advance of the “Yellow Line.”
The line, which marks the boundaries of the Israeli military zone inside the Gaza Strip, continues to move forward, triggering yet another wave of displacement for Palestinian families who have barely managed to settle before being forced to leave once again.
On a road in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Palestinian resident Assem Dawla was loading his belongings onto a cart near yellow concrete blocks placed among the rubble to mark the expanding Israeli military zone.
He said this was the seventh or eighth time since the war began in October 2023 that he and his family had been forced to leave their shelter because of Israeli evacuation warnings and the advance of the “Yellow Line.”
Al-Zaytoun is one of at least five neighborhoods across Gaza where residents say Israel has expanded its areas of control in recent days by pushing the “Yellow Line” forward. The deployment line was established under the ceasefire agreement reached in October through U.S. mediation.
As men loaded their belongings onto a waiting truck, elderly residents moved cautiously through the rubble. Dawla said the continued Israeli military activity had made it too dangerous to remain in the area.
“We are leaving because the occupation is pushing the Yellow Line as far as Salah al-Din Street,” he said.
With the ceasefire reached last October, U.S. President Donald Trump put forward a plan for Gaza that largely brought an end to full-scale hostilities after two years of devastating Israeli warfare in the Gaza Strip, which erupted following the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
The plan called for increased humanitarian aid, the administration of Gaza by a civilian Palestinian authority, the disarmament of Hamas, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip, and the deployment of an international force to help maintain security. However, progress on these measures has stalled.
Israel effectively controlled an estimated 64% of Gaza by late April.
Nearly all of the territory’s approximately two million residents are concentrated in a narrow coastal area under Hamas control, where most live in damaged buildings or temporary shelters amid extremely dire humanitarian conditions.
Hamas has so far refused to disarm, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 28 that Israel intended to expand the area under its control to cover 70% of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have continued to carry out near-daily military strikes across Gaza.
Israeli Warnings
Residents of Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, the Al-Zaytoun, Al-Tuffah and Al-Shuja’iyya neighborhoods of Gaza City, as well as northern Rafah, told Reuters that Israeli forces had moved the yellow markers over the past ten days, triggering new waves of displacement in areas already devastated by months of conflict.
At least seven people interviewed by Reuters said residents in some affected areas had received warnings via text messages or loudspeakers mounted on drones before being forced to leave once again.
The Israeli military says its forces are deployed in Gaza to protect Israel from attacks and that the Yellow Line is clearly marked on the ground to reduce the possibility of friction between military forces and civilians.
The military said its capabilities in the area include a security zone, a physical barrier, intelligence capabilities and technological means, as well as operational activities carried out by its forces.
For many residents who have received evacuation orders, the process, although now familiar, remains deeply painful. They rush to collect whatever remains from their previous displacement journeys— a few blankets, a cooking pot or a child’s schoolbag—before setting off, often under the cover of darkness, toward another area designated by the Israeli military as safe.
Repeated Displacement
Near the ruins of destroyed buildings in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, Umm Sami, Dawla’s mother, struggled to walk because of a limp as she moved through what remained of the family’s possessions, trying to gather anything that could still be carried.
Like the vast majority of Gaza’s residents, the Dawla family has been displaced several times since the war began. Each time, they set up temporary shelters, only to face the same ordeal again days or weeks later when new evacuation orders were issued.
In a statement issued on July 20, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that an Israeli evacuation order in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood had forced 30 families to leave their tents, which residents said were subsequently destroyed.
As carts carrying the remnants of their belongings moved away, a child walked beside large yellow blocks amid the rubble, as if everyone were bracing themselves for yet another journey into the unknown.
