The Israeli army on Wednesday called on all residents to evacuate Gaza City, the main municipality in the besieged Palestinian territory, where its soldiers are engaged in a major operation against the Islamist movement Hamas.
Thousands of leaflets calling on “all people” to evacuate through “safe corridors” have been dropped over the city in the north of the territory. The leaflets warn that the already partly destroyed city, where the UN says there were 300,000 to 350,000 people, remains “a dangerous combat zone.”
The army launched a ground operation on June 27 in the Choujaïya sector, in the east of the city, before extending it to the central districts on Monday.
Ground troops, supported by tanks and aerial bombardments, are engaged in intense fighting against Hamas and its allies, the most violent to occur in Gaza City since the start of the war, which has already forced tens of thousands of residents to flee.
These new guidelines “will only add to the mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced multiple times,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on Wednesday.
“Civilians must be protected,” he said.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the aim of the evacuation was “to get civilians out of harm’s way” while the army tries to “reach the terrorists where they are.”
After months of unsuccessful diplomatic efforts, new talks are due to begin in Qatar to try to broker a ceasefire and free hostages taken in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war.
An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha on Wednesday, according to a source close to the negotiations. CIA Director William Burns was also expected.
A “ghost town”
The army announced on Wednesday that the soldiers had carried out “an operation against terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were using the headquarters of UNRWA,” the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, “as a base to launch attacks,” and that they had “eliminated terrorists.”
According to UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, the fighting in recent days has forced 350,000 people onto the roads, although almost the entire population of the territory has already been displaced by the war.
“This is the 12the “We are displaced so many times. How many more times do we have to endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?” said Umm Nimr al-Jamal, a Palestinian woman who fled Gaza City with her family.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal and witnesses said Israeli forces had withdrawn from Shujaiya. The army denied the report, adding that its forces were “still operating in the area.”
The area has become “a ghost town,” Mr. Bassal said.
Images from Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday showed residents of Shujaiya walking amidst rubble in a devastated landscape.
Fighting is also raging in the south of the territory, where Israeli tanks have entered the center of Rafah, according to witnesses who reported intense gunfire in the town on the border with Egypt.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that the army had “eliminated or wounded 60 percent” of Hamas fighters during the nine-month war.
“Stop this terrible war”
On Tuesday evening, for the fourth time in four days, an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced people in Abassan, near Khan Younis in the south, killing 29 people, including children, according to a medical source and Hamas. The army said it was targeting “terrorists”.
Paris and Berlin condemned the strikes.
The war broke out on October 7 after an attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,95 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still being held in Gaza, 42 of whom are dead, according to the army.
In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and launched a military offensive that has so far killed 38,243 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza government.
In a meeting Wednesday in Jerusalem with White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his commitment to a ceasefire agreement “as long as Israel’s red lines are respected.”
A Hamas official, Hossam Badran, told AFP that the “intensification” of Israeli “massacres” in the Gaza Strip had the effect of strengthening the demands of the Islamist movement.
On Wednesday, families of hostages began a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to push the government to reach an agreement on the release of their loved ones.
“We call on all of Israel to join us in putting pressure, in reminding Netanyahu […] “He must sign an agreement, bring them back and stop this terrible war,” Ayala Metzger, the daughter-in-law of Yoram Metzger, who died in captivity at the age of 80 and whose body is still in Gaza, told AFP.