GENEVA: Palestinians in the relatively unscathed Nasser area of Gaza City were having to decide whether to stay or go on Thursday after the Israeli military dropped leaflets warning that troops would take control of the western neighborhood. Israel has ordered the hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City to leave as it intensifies its all-out war on Hamas, but with little safety, space, and food in the rest of Gaza, people face dire choices.

Residents of the city of one million Palestinians have been expecting an onslaught for weeks, since the Israeli government devised a plan to deal Hamas a fatal blow.

Gazans have already been displaced several times since the war, moving between the north and the south of the coastal enclave, in a worsening humanitarian crisis.