Palestinians left Gaza City on foot, by bicycle and by car on Wednesday, as the Israeli army pressed a ground operation that has turned the city into a principal target. Israeli air and artillery strikes killed dozens of people across the enclave the same day, according to local authorities.
With fresh assurances of “unwavering” U.S. support, Israel on Tuesday announced a major ground-and-air offensive aimed at destroying Hamas, whose 7 October 2023 attack in southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza.
In retaliation, Israel’s armed forces have carried out sweeping operations across the small coastal territory, causing tens of thousands of deaths and a humanitarian catastrophe. Since the war began, the enclave’s roughly two million residents have been displaced in their vast majority, many multiple times.
“It feels like Judgment Day, or like we’re in hell, though hell might be kinder,” said Fatima Louband, 36, who fled on foot with four of her children, walking ten kilometres from Gaza City in the north to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. “We were forced to sleep with our children in the streets,” she told AFP.
Day and night, families moved southward, on foot, in passenger cars, on donkey carts and on trucks, carrying what they could, as ordered by the Israeli military, according to AFP visual material. But Um Ahmed Younis, 44, said she had no money to pay anyone to transport her family. “There are no tents, or they’re unaffordable,” she said. “It costs less to die.”
The Israeli military said it would open a new “passage” until Friday at 11:00 (Cyprus time) to enable residents to leave the city, via Salah al-Din road, which runs north–south through Gaza City and its suburbs.
The UN estimated in late August that roughly one million people were living in Gaza City and its surrounding districts. The Israeli army says “more than 350,000” have left. On Wednesday, civil defence authorities reported at least 64 people killed in Israeli strikes across the Strip, including 41 in Gaza City. In the Shati refugee camp, a building collapsed after a strike, killing at least four people, among them a woman and her child, according to the same source.
The army, which says it controls about 75% of the Gaza Strip, has been ordered to drive Hamas from Gaza City—described as one of the group’s last strongholds in the enclave. Since Tuesday, it says it has hit “more than 150 terrorist targets” in close air support of ground troops. Given media access constraints inside Gaza, AFP noted it could not independently verify casualty figures or military claims from either side.
Protests in Israel and the toll of the war
Israel’s assault on Gaza City has drawn criticism abroad and from parts of Israeli public opinion, where many say they fear for the fate of hostages held in Gaza for the 713th day. In Jerusalem, relatives of captives protested outside one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residences.
The 7 October 2023 attack killed 1,219 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Of the 251 people abducted that day, 47 are still in Gaza; Israel has declared 25 of them dead. According to Gaza’s health authorities, at least 65,062 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed by Israel’s retaliatory military operations.
The UN has declared a state of famine in parts of northern Gaza, which Israel denies. On Tuesday, an independent UN-mandated commission said Israeli officials had incited genocide against Palestinians in Gaza; the Israeli government rejected the finding.
In recent days, Israel has also struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, where at least two people were killed in Baalbek, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, Houthi targets in Yemen, and Hamas figures in Qatar. On Wednesday, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad appeared on Al Jazeera, his first public remarks since the Israeli strikes in Doha on 9 September: “Thank God, we survived this treacherous attack,” he said.
What’s new as of 18 September
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Evacuation corridor and escalating assault. Israel opened a 48-hour evacuation route along Salah al-Din road to push civilians out of Gaza City while tanks advanced from the east and south. The overall Palestinian death toll has passed 65,000, Reuters reported, as the ground push continues.
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Famine and aid access. UN OCHA says famine has been confirmed in Gaza governorate and warns that fuel and food stocks in the north could be exhausted within days after Israel closed the Zikim crossing on 12 September, the only aid entry point to northern Gaza. Israel says it allows aid and accuses Hamas of diversion; the UN says access remains insufficient.
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Control of territory. The Israeli military says it now controls around 75% of the Gaza Strip, and has moved to take central and western sectors of Gaza City in the opening phase of the new ground operation.
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Rights and accountability. The UN rights chief urged Israel to “stop the carnage” as the Gaza City assault began, while a UN Commission of Inquiry this week accused top Israeli officials of incitement to genocide, allegations Israel rejects as biased.
CNA, AFP, Reuters
