“It sounded like the war was starting again,” says Mohammad Jamal (File)
Cairo:
Israel stormed into a Gaza City neighborhood on Thursday and ordered Palestinians to move south as tanks rolled in and bombed the southern city of Rafah in what they said was the final phase of an operation against Hamas operatives there.
Residents of Gaza City’s Shejaia neighborhood said they were surprised by the sounds of tanks approaching and firing in the early afternoon, while drones also attacked after overnight bombardments of the city, which Israel had scoured early in the war.
“It sounded like the war was starting again, a series of bombings that destroyed several houses in our area and shook the buildings,” Mohammad Jamal, 25, a resident of Gaza City, told Reuters via a chat app.
Later on Thursday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said Israeli military strikes had killed at least seven people in Shejaia so far. There are fears that more victims may be buried under rubble where rescue teams cannot reach, the report said.
Footage obtained by Reuters showed women, men and children carrying bags and food as they ran through the streets after the raid began. Some men carried wounded children, some bleeding, in their arms as they fled.
“This is the (Israeli) occupation that is targeting us, as you can see. You can see the children, attacking children here,” said a man with a bleeding boy in his arms.
An Israeli military spokesman said they had no comment on reports of casualties in Shejaia.
The armed wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it detonated a pre-placed explosive device against an Israeli tank east of the district.
Israel accuses the officers of hiding among civilians and says it is warning displaced people to get out of the way of their operations against the fighters.
“For your safety, you must immediately evacuate south through Salah al-Din Street, to the humanitarian zone,” army spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X in an appeal to residents and displaced people in Shejaia.
Residents and Hamas media said the tanks moved in ahead of the post and people from the eastern suburb ran west under fire as Israel blocked the road south.
More than eight months after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, sparked by the October 7 Hamas-led cross-border attack, aid officials say the enclave remains at high risk of famine, killing nearly half a million people facing ‘catastrophic’ food insecurity.
“We are starving in Gaza City and being chased by tanks and planes with no hope that this war will ever end,” Jamal said.
ANOTHER CHILD DIES FROM MALNUTRITION
The death of another girl at Kamal Adwan Hospital late Wednesday raised the number of children who died of malnutrition and dehydration to at least 31, a Gaza health official said, adding that the war made recording such cases difficult .
Israel denies accusations that it created the famine conditions, blames aid agencies for distribution problems and accuses Hamas of diverting aid, charges the agents deny.
In southern Gaza, drone footage on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed dozens of homes destroyed in parts of Rafah, while the village of Swedeya on the city’s west side was completely wiped out.
There was no immediate Israeli military comment on the military action.
International mediation, backed by the US, has failed to produce a ceasefire deal, although talks continue amid intense Western pressure on Gaza to receive more aid.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday he had discussed his proposals for governing post-war Gaza, which would involve local Palestinians, regional partners and the US, but that it would be “a long and complex process”.
Senior US officials told Gallant, who was visiting Washington, that the US would put a pause on a shipment of heavy ammunition for Israel while the matter is investigated. Shipments were halted in early May over concerns that the weapons could cause more Palestinian deaths in Gaza.
Hamas says any deal must end the war and require a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is eradicated.
When Hamas-led agents stormed into southern Israel on October 7, they killed about 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 37,765 people so far, Gaza’s health ministry said Thursday, and left the small, heavily built-up Gaza Strip in ruins.
Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel has lost 314 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
