Israeli forces have pounded the suburbs of Gaza City from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet prepares to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Local health authorities said Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people on Sunday, including 13 who tried to get food from near an aid site in the central Gaza Strip, and at least two in a house in Gaza City. Dozens have been killed seeking aid in recent months.
The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said they were reviewing the reports.
Gaza health authorities also said at least 15 people, including five children, were killed in an attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City on Saturday.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone”.
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale Israeli offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, also said a key spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing had been killed in the fighting.
Abu Obeida’s last statement was on Friday as Israel began the initial stages of a new offensive in Gaza City, declaring the area a combat zone.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the Gaza Strip is equipped to absorb, amid severe shortages of food, shelter, and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others including myself didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave, according to local sources.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.
