The displacement faced by Gaza's population is "unprecedented" and "unparalleled by anything since World War II", experts have told the BBC.
The small number of safe places for people to relocate and the constant displacement within a small and densely populated area are highly unusual, say historians and academics specializing in conflict, forced migration and international law.
Nine out of ten Gazans, out of a total of 2,1 million, fled their homes during the two-year war, according to United Nations data.
The borders of the Palestinian enclave have literally remained sealed.
Israel repeatedly issued orders for people to leave certain areas, leading to mass population movements.
He claims the orders are part of "emergency measures" to protect civilians while being targeted by Hamas.
Some human rights groups say the situation amounts to forced displacement.
Families in Gaza moved an average of six times during the conflict, and some up to 19 times, according to a 2024 study by the Danish Refugee Council.
In recent weeks, the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza City has once again forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee.
However, now thousands are returning. after the armistice agreement achieved by Hamas and Israel.
Soha Musleh, a nurse with two young children, like many other Gazans, was squeezed into one area after another as Israel expanded its operations, razing entire neighborhoods to the ground.
“The displacement in Gaza is unlike anything we have seen since World War II, not just in terms of the numbers of people displaced, but also in terms of the conditions,” says Dawn Chetty, professor of anthropology and forced migration at the University of Oxford.
"Palestinians in Gaza have nowhere to go. People are forced to flee from one unsafe location to another," he adds.
Israel frequently sends leaflets, text messages, and social media posts telling Gazans to "evacuate" from certain areas.
He urged them throughout the war to move to Al-Mawasi, a small sandy coastal area with very few amenities that Israel declared a "humanitarian zone" but constantly bombed.
The evacuation orders being sent across Gaza are being implemented "to protect civilians," and "residents can evacuate for their own safety via evacuation routes and corridors," the Israeli military told the BBC.
They claim to be acting in accordance with international law.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of "entering civilian areas" and claims that they do not target humanitarian areas, but will respond to threats and military activities within them.
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Displacements in waves
The impact of such orders is visible on satellite images through the repeated relocation of large tent camps and makeshift shelters in some parts of Gaza.
The Hamada neighborhood near Al-Mawasi began filling with tents in May 2024, as it was declared part of a "humanitarian zone."
By July of that year, the previously empty land was densely populated (see below).
Meanwhile, Israel twice issued orders for the residents to leave.
The area was cleared of tents both times, but was later repopulated after Israel reclassified it as a "humanitarian zone."
That was once. in August 2024, when the Israeli military said that a nearby area was being used to fire rockets into Israel.
The second time was about a year later (see below).
Soha and her family passed by the city of Hamad in the spring of 2024, on their way to nearby Deir al-Balah.
"Sometimes all you take with you is your own life, and then you have to start all over again," she says.
Some of their eight displacements followed mass population movements during the war: from northern Gaza in the early weeks after Hamas's attacks on Israel on October 7, to the town of Khan Younis, and then to Rafah in the south, until Israel launched a ground invasion there.
These waves of displacement have caused the populations of cities and regions in Gaza to shrink and increase.
The two northern governorates in the Belt lost three-quarters of their population in the first four months of the war.
For a few months in early 2024, Rafah hosted almost four times as many people as it had before the war, until Israel told people to leave again.
This city is now almost completely destroyed and very few people remain there.
Most headed to the two central areas of Gaza, Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah, whose combined population then nearly tripled.
'Confined in a sealed zone'
The displacement in Gaza is different from others in the world because of its "confined, repetitive and deadly conditions," says Daniel Blatman, a historian specializing in the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"In Gaza, civilians are trapped inside the sealed-off Strip, ordered to be transferred again and again to overcrowded pockets labeled 'humanitarian' despite hostilities taking place nearby," he points out.
The situation in Gaza is "unprecedented" due to "the inability of the vast majority of the civilian population to completely leave the conflict zone," says Yuval Shani, a professor of international law, also at Hebrew University.
He added that Israel and Hamas "endanger the civilian population in their own operations," and that the lack of international pressure on Israel and Egypt to open the borders is "incredible."
These types of "induced displacements" are "unfortunate" for Norman Godd, a professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Florida, but he believes that "the alternative would be for the Israelis to attack Hamas positions without any warning to civilians."
"Safe zones" require the consent of all parties to the conflict, he adds.
Hamas "could have recognized the safe zone" that Israel tried to establish in Al-Mawasi, but "continued to use it for operations," he points out.
In recent months, more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip has been either under Israeli military control or under orders for residents to leave, reaching 88 percent in July, according to the UN.
At its smallest, the remaining area is equivalent to a strip about nine kilometers wide and five kilometers long - smaller than Manhattan, New York City.
Parts of it are covered in rubble and debris, further limiting living space and making living conditions difficult, the UN points out.
Displaced Gazans face extreme overcrowding.
People living in tents and shelters across the enclave have an average of half a square meter of protected space per person, according to a group of agencies working with the UN on shelters in Gaza.
That's for comparison, when about 40 people live in a room measuring four by five meters.
Soup kitchens, water distribution points and field hospitals are operating in the area, but aid agencies say it is a major challenge to meet the rapidly growing demand for services, accusing Israel of "systematic obstruction" of food and aid entering the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military told the BBC it was stepping up deliveries of food, medical supplies and equipment to shelters in Gaza, stressing that "humanitarian infrastructure in the south is ready for the expected population size".
For many Palestinians, the situation has certain parallels with what they call Nakba (Catastrophe), when about 750.000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948-1949 war for the creation of Israel.
Many Gazans are their descendants, including Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian mission in the UK.
Zomlot says they "know very well what happened" in 1948.
"Once they are asked to evacuate under the force of the Israeli army, they will never be able to return to their own city."
"This happened in the Nakba, and it's happening to them again now," he explains.
The Israelis are "destroying everything that's left of Gaza" so that the displaced people in the Strip "will have nowhere to go."
"It's a planned displacement," he adds.
Look how devastated Gaza is after almost two years of conflict
'Serious questions'
Both Human Rights Watch and the UN commission that concluded that Israel is committing genocide They said in reports that forced displacement is taking place in a form that amounts to a war crime.
Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) told the BBC that they also support this position.
The communication "does not meet the strict rules of legal evacuation", citing reasons such as "the massive, uniform and repeated nature of the orders which do not correspond to immediate military needs or the safety of civilians" and the strikes which affected fleeing civilians, an OHCHR spokesperson told the BBC.
Several experts the BBC spoke to say the displacements are forced and not in line with international law.
There are "serious questions" about whether they meet the legal criteria for evacuations, Dr. Shani points out.
The Israeli embassy in London told the BBC that it categorically rejects allegations of forced displacement, war crimes and genocide.
"Israel is taking extraordinary measures to minimize damage, even at the cost of losing military surprise," they said.
The evacuations are "temporary and implemented to protect civilian lives" and "strictly respect international humanitarian law" and Israel "has no intention of ruling Gaza," they added.
The Israeli military launched the war in Gaza in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1.200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage.
More than 66.000 people have been killed and around 170.000 wounded in the ensuing Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the territory, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
The UN also estimates that about 92 percent of homes in Gaza, about 436.000 of them, have been destroyed or damaged since October 7, 2023.
This is based on figures from the local Ministry of Housing.
Soha, her husband and their two children now live in Nuseirat in central Gaza, along with her parents, and her brother and sister's families, crammed into their cousin's damaged two-room apartment.
"We live in it and somehow manage."
"It's still better than in a tent," she says.
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