Israel’s military said it had expanded operations in Gaza City yesterday and bombarded Hamas infrastructure, while displaced Palestinians traumatised by the advance said they had no means to flee.
“The situation is really bad. All night long, the tank was firing shells,” said Palestinian Toufic Abu Mouawad, who left a camp for the displaced with nowhere else to go.
“I want to flee with the boys, the girls, the children. This is the situation that we are living in. It is a very tragic situation. We call on all the Arab countries and the people who have a good conscience to stand with us.”
Israeli forces control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and in recent days have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western areas, where most of the population is sheltering.
The Gaza health authorities said 33 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24 hours.
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it believed 350,000 people had left Gaza City since the start of September and that about 600,000 remained.
Satellite imagery from September 18, reviewed by Reuters, shows new tents appearing in the areas south of Gaza City after September 5. It also shows crowds of people on the Al Rashid road and what appear to be vehicles on the Salah Al Din road.
In leaflets dropped over Gaza City, the military had told Palestinians they could use the newly reopened Salah Al Din road to escape to the south.
The IDF said an air strike had killed Mahmoud Yusuf Abu Alkhir, whom it identified as deputy head of military intelligence in Hamas’ Bureij Battalion.
Dozens of protesters gathered on the Israeli side of the border, calling for an end to the war. They held banners or placards with slogans that included “Stop the genocide in Gaza” and “Free Gaza, isolate Israel”.
The armed wing of Hamas said on Thursday that the hostages were distributed throughout the neighbourhoods of Gaza City.
“The start of this criminal operation and its expansion means you will not receive any captive, alive or dead,” it said in a written statement.
Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said on X: “If Hamas does not release the hostages and disarm, Gaza will be destroyed and turned into a monument to the rapists and murderers of Hamas.”
Israel says the extent of hunger has been exaggerated and that Hamas could end the war at once if it surrendered, freed the hostages, disarmed and disbanded.
Hamas says it will not disarm until a Palestinian state is established. Numerous attempts to mediate an end to the conflict have failed.
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