Gaza evacuation warnings from IDF contain many errors

Evacuation warnings issued by Israel to people in Gaza ahead of attacks have contained a host of significant errors, BBC analysis has revealed.

Warnings contained contradictory information and sometimes misnamed districts. This made them confusing to Gazans seeking safety.

Experts say such mistakes could violate Israel's international law obligations.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has rejected any assertion the warnings were confusing or contradictory.

In a statement, it said the alerts analysed by the BBC were only one element of its "extensive efforts to encourage the evacuation [of] civilians out of harm's way".

International humanitarian law requires attacking forces to give effective advance warning of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.

Israel says its warning system is designed to help civilians flee danger as it continues its war against Hamas. The system divides a map of Gaza into hundreds of numbered blocks.

Israel has produced an interactive online map of the blocks that geo-locates users, showing their live location and which block number they are in.

This IDF post from late January shows a social media post on X with a link through via QR code to the master block map.International humanitarian law requires attacking forces to give effective advance warning of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.

Israel says its warning system is designed to help civilians flee danger as it continues its war against Hamas. The system divides a map of Gaza into hundreds of numbered blocks.

Israel has produced an interactive online map of the blocks that geo-locates users, showing their live location and which block number they are in.

This IDF post from late January shows a social media post on X with a link through via QR code to the master block map.

But people we spoke to have described struggling to get online to access the system, as well as finding the block system difficult to understand, notwithstanding the errors.

The BBC analysed the IDF's Arabic language social media channels on Facebook, X and Telegram, where we found hundreds of posts containing warnings. The same warnings were often posted repeatedly.

We also searched for leafleted warnings which had been photographed and shared online. The IDF says it has dropped 16 million such leaflets over Gaza.

We have focused our analysis on warnings issued since 1 December, which is when the IDF launched its block system as a way of providing more precise instructions than previously, after coming under international pressure.

We grouped all of the IDF's posts and leaflets that we found after this date into 26 separate warnings. The vast majority made reference to the master block system.