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The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was opening an additional route for 48 hours that Palestinians could use to leave Gaza City as it stepped up efforts to empty the city of civilians and confront thousands of Hamas combatants.
Hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering in the city and many are reluctant to follow Israel’s orders to move south because of the dangers along the way, dire conditions, a lack of food in the southern area, and fear of permanent displacement.
“Even if we want to leave Gaza City, is there any guarantee we would be able to come back? Will the war ever end? That’s why I prefer to die here, in Sabra, my neighbourhood,” Ahmed, a school teacher, said by phone.
At least 50 people were killed by Israeli strikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including 39 in Gaza City, local health authorities said.
They said the latest fatalities took the Palestinian death toll in the two-year war between Israel and Hamas past 65,000. Palestinian officials and rescue workers say the true figure is likely to be higher, as many people’s remains are trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Gaza health authorities also reported a drone attack on a specialist children’s hospital, which did not cause casualties but forced young patients and their families outside.
Israel estimates about 400,000 people, or 40 per cent of those who were in Gaza City on Aug. 10, when it announced plans to take control, have already fled. The Gaza media office says 190,000 have headed south and 350,000 have moved to central and western areas of the city.
Report of grenades dropped on children’s hospital
A day after Israel announced the launch of a ground offensive to seize control of Gaza’s main urban centre, tanks had moved short distances toward the city’s central and western areas from three directions, but no major advance was reported.
An Israeli official said military operations were focused on getting civilians to head south and that fighting would intensify over the next month or two.
The official said Israel expected around 100,000 civilians to remain in the city, which would take months to capture, and the operation could be suspended if a ceasefire was reached with the Hamas militant group.
The prospects of a ceasefire appear remote after Israel attacked Hamas political leaders in Doha last week, infuriating Qatar, a co-mediator in ceasefire talks.
Defying global criticism of the attack, including a rebuke by Israel’s stalwart ally, the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will strike Hamas leaders anywhere.
Thousands of Palestinians streamed out of Gaza City as Israel launched its ground offensive on Tuesday, but hundreds of thousands remain in the city that is already in ruins from nearly two years of war. Several residents, some of whom had previously fled south but have since returned, tell CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife why they are staying.
The Ministry of Health said an Israeli drone had dropped grenades on one floor of the Rantissi children’s hospital on Wednesday. No casualties were reported but the ministry said some 40 families took their children away.
“This hospital is the only specialist facility for children with cancer, kidney failure and other life-threatening conditions — but even these gravely ill children are not spared from relentless bombardment,” said Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director at the U.K.-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
More leaflets dropped
In leaflets dropped over Gaza City, the military said Palestinians could use the newly reopened Salah al-Din Road to escape toward the south and that they had until lunchtime on Friday to do so.
“Movement must only take place via the streets marked in yellow on the map as the route for southward transit. Follow the instructions of the security forces and traffic signs,” they said.
But the situation remained chaotic and dangerous for civilians, who have been streaming away on foot, by donkey cart or in vehicles in recent days.
On the same day a ground offensive was launched in Gaza City, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry report concluded Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a finding emphatically denied by Israeli officials.
Much of Gaza City was laid to waste early in the war in 2023, but around 1 million Palestinians had returned there to homes among the ruins. Forcing them out would mean confining most of Gaza’s population to overcrowded encampments in the south where a hunger crisis is unfolding.
The United Nations, aid groups and foreign governments have condemned Israel’s offensive and the proposed mass displacement.
A UN Commission of Inquiry concluded on Tuesday that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel called the assessment “scandalous” and “fake.”
On Wednesday, more than 20 major aid groups called for urgent intervention in Gaza, urging world leaders convening next week to “act in accordance” with the UN’s mandate after the UN commission’s finding.
“Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable,” said a statement from groups including Save the Children, Anera and CARE International.
“Now, as the Israeli government has ordered the mass displacement of Gaza City — home to nearly one million people — we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken.
Hundreds of thousands still in Gaza City
Israeli forces control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and have been pounding three areas in the southeast, north and northwestern coastal areas of the city, from which tanks have been pressing toward the centre and western areas.
“Gaza is being wiped out. A city that is thousands of years old is being wiped out in front of the whole cowardly world,” said Ahmed, the school teacher.
Palestinian and UN officials say no place is safe, including in the southern area designated by Israel as a “humanitarian zone.” On Tuesday, an airstrike killed five people in a vehicle as they were leaving Gaza City for the south.
In Nuseirat refugee camp in the enclave’s centre, an airstrike destroyed a high-rise building on Wednesday, prompting residents of nearby buildings to flee in panic.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said Israel has destroyed and damaged 1,600 residential buildings since Aug. 10, when Netanyahu announced Israel’s intention to take full control of the territory by force.
Israeli forces have also destroyed 13,000 tents in Gaza City where displaced people had been sheltering, it said.