Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital said it had received the bodies of 20 people killed in Israeli strikes since midnight.
Israeli tanks and warplanes pounded Gaza City on Thursday, prompting long lines of scared Palestinian civilians to flee as the military intensified its assault on the territory’s largest urban hub.
Thick columns of smoke billowed into the sky as AFP journalists and witnesses saw a steady stream of Gazans heading south on foot, in vehicles and on donkey carts — their meagre belongings piled high.
The cost of fleeing
“There is artillery fire, air strikes, quadcopter and drone gunfire. The bombing never stops,” said Aya Ahmed, 32, sheltering with 13 relatives in Gaza City.
“The world doesn’t understand what is happening. They (Israel) want us to evacuate south — but where will we live? There are no tents, no transport, no money.”
Palestinians say the cost of a ride to the south has soared, in some cases topping $1 000 (about R17 400).
“The situation is indescribable — crowds everywhere, the sound of explosions, women and men crying and screaming as they walked while carrying their belongings,” said Shadi Jawad, 47, describing his family’s ordeal as they fled their home on Wednesday.
During the journey, their belongings fell off their truck when it suffered a flat tyre.
“As we were putting the belongings back on it, I looked up at the sky and prayed ‘God, send a missile to take us out and relieve us’.”
The offensive has sparked international outrage, with the territory already devastated by nearly two years of war and the Gaza City area gripped by a UN-declared famine.
‘Unfit for human dignity’
“The military incursion and evacuation orders in northern Gaza are driving new waves of displacement, forcing traumatised families into an ever-shrinking area unfit for human dignity,” World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
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“Hospitals, already overwhelmed, are on the brink of collapse as escalating violence blocks access and prevents WHO from delivering lifesaving supplies,” he warned.
Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital said it had received the bodies of 20 people killed in Israeli strikes since midnight.
More than 60 people had been killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under Hamas authority.
The Israeli military said it continued to target “Hamas terror infrastructure” and also operated in the southern areas of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
Media restrictions in the territory and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the details provided by the civil defence or the Israeli military.
The US-backed offensive began on Tuesday and came as a UN probe accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials had incited the crime.
Israel rejected the findings and slammed it as “distorted and false”.
Navi Pillay, who headed the investigation, told AFP that she hoped Israeli leaders would one day be jailed.
“I see similarities” to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she said, pointing to “the same kind of methods”.
Spain said it will probe “human rights violations in Gaza” to assist the International Criminal Court, which has sought arrest warrants for Israeli officials over alleged war crimes.
ALSO READ: ‘We pulled the children out in pieces’: Israel pummels Gaza City
‘My boy is dying there’
On Wednesday, the Israeli military announced “a temporary transportation route via Salah al-Din Street”, as AFP images showed fresh bombardments.
Its Arabic-language spokesperson, Colonel Avichay Adraee, said the corridor would remain open for just 48 hours.
The UN estimated at the end of August that about one million people were living in Gaza City and its surroundings. Israel says 350 000 of them have fled.
“Enough, we want to be free. We want to live, we don’t want to die,” said Gaza City resident Mohammed al-Danf.
The families of hostages taken by Palestinian militants in their October 2023 attack protested the Gaza City offensive in front of Netanyahu’s house in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
“My boy is dying over there. Instead of bringing him back, you have done the exact opposite – you have done everything to prevent his return,” Ofir Braslavski, whose son Rom is held captive in Gaza, said addressing the prime minister.
Hostages and deaths
Of the 251 people taken hostage by Palestinian militants in October 2023, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
The attack also resulted in the deaths of 1 219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 65 141 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
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