Gaza City has been under relentless bombardment for 23 months, and the Israeli military’s indiscriminate bombing of it has reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, forcing residents to flee in fear.
An entire family of five, including three children, were killed on Thursday in an attack on a tent in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood as part of Israel’s round-the-clock assault on what UNICEF has dubbed the “city of fear.”
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Palestinians were seen clearing up scattered belongings, including two blood-stained pink slippers that lay among the debris, on video from the attack.
When we heard the sound of a bomb, my children and I were sleeping in the tent. My four children started screaming when shrapnel fell on us, according to Israa al-Basous, an AFP news agency.
As a result of the military’s plan to remove nearly one million people from the enclave’s largest urban hub, attacks were reported in the neighborhoods of City’s Zeitoun, Sabra, Tuffah, Nassr, and Shujayea.
According to Mahmoud Basal, the civil emergency service spokesperson for the region, heavy bombardment in the Tuffah neighborhood left at least eight people dead and dozens more injured.
At least two people were killed in Shujayea when an Israeli bomb struck a residential building, according to a source in charge of the ambulance. Additionally, three bodies were discovered dead in a destroyed home belonging to the al-Ghaf family in Zeitoun.
According to Hani Mahmoud, a journalist for Al Jazeera from Gaza City, “they’re moving from one area that is less dangerous, but still within the reach of Israeli military fire, the air strikes, and bombardment.”
Many of the displaced were moving in the hope of finding safety for a few days, according to Mahmoud, only to find themselves re-displaced once more.
Many had fled to the city’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, but tanks started to erupt into the area northwest of the city center, igniting fires in tent camps and destroying homes.
Hospitals were overflowing with patients. The morgue’s floor at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was filled with bodies draped in white shrouds.
As her son’s body lay on a stretcher outside, a woman stroked his head.
Son, who are you leaving me to? Why? Why”? she shed a tear.
Nearly one million people were ensnared in the “city of fear, flight, and funerals,” according to Tess Ingram, UNICEF’s communication manager for the Middle East and North Africa.
On Thursday in Gaza City, 44 people were killed overall.
75 people were killed in the town.
Brigadier General Effie Defrin, a spokesman for the Israeli military, reported that troops now control 40% of the city as terrified residents scurried to find shelter from the bombs.
He claimed that the operation would “continue to grow and grow” over the coming weeks.
The Zeitoun neighborhood’s satellite images revealed the “heavy presence” of more than 52 Israeli army vehicles, according to Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency.
The images, which date from August 25 and September 1, show a blatant pattern of forced displacement of residents west of Gaza City, particularly along al-Rashid Street and the beach.
Palestinians who have fled Gaza City over the past few months have discovered impoverished conditions further south, where people’s mass movements have increased the number of tent camps and raised the price of basic goods.
The arrival of more people from the north has worsened their situation, according to Shorouk Abu Eid, a pregnant woman from Gaza City who was displaced to Khan Younis four months ago.
She told The Associated Press news agency, “There is no peace of mind, no privacy.”
In any case, wherever they go, Palestinians who are escaping are most likely to find death and destruction.
In addition to killing three children, Israel bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday, killing seven people.
And seven people were killed and more injured when Israeli forces fired at a group of people looking for aid near a distribution point in southern Rafah.
Since dawn, Israeli ground and air attacks have claimed 75 lives across the enclave.
US denies that Israel has been violated by France and others.
American Secretary of State Marco Rubio pressed for recognition of a Palestinian state to blame for Israel’s violations of the occupied West Bank as diplomatic efforts to put an end to the Gaza war sputtered.
In the midst of Israel’s terror-related campaign in Gaza, the annexation drive has been gaining steam. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right Israeli, called for the annexation of the majority of the territory this week.
When a reporter asked about the annexation drive, Rubio effectively attributed Rubio to France and other nations that are planning to declare their support for a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York this month.
We informed all of these nations, and we did. We warned that if you did this recognition work, which is all fake and not even real, you would end up in significant problems,” Rubio said on Thursday.
On Thursday, the US added Al-Haq, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights to its list of well-known Palestinian rights organizations. Without Israel’s permission, the rights groups were targeted, according to Rubio, because they “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court [ICC] to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant were both detained by the ICC for war crimes last year.
France was also alleged to be in contact with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who claimed that Paris would not allow a visit from French President Emmanuel Macron if Paris continued to engage in “efforts that harm Israel’s interests.”
