Nearly 200,000 Israelis internally displaced amid ongoing Gaza war

Israeli authorities have said that some 200,000 Israelis have been internally displaced in the ongoing Israel-Hamas following the terror group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, and amid escalating skirmishes on the Lebanon border in the north with terror group Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions.

About half of the 200,000 were instructed to evacuate from 105 communities near the Gaza and Lebanon borders in the south and north, while half left areas close to the front of their own volition, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office said, according to The Times of Israel.

The Defence Ministry, through its National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), said it was giving services to about 120,000 displaced Israelis ordered to evacuate from 25 communities up to four kilometres from the Gaza Strip, and from another 28 communities up to two kilometres from the Lebanon border, according to a Defence Ministry announcement.