Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet met yesterday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Local health authorities said Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people yesterday, including 13 who tried to get food near an aid site in the central Gaza Strip, and at least two in a house in Gaza City.
The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said they were reviewing the reports.
Photo: REUTERS
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes over the weekend, 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.”
Netanyahu’s security cabinet was to convene last night after press time to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
Meanwhile, an Israeli official on Saturday said that Israel would soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza as it expands its military offensive.
The official said on condition of anonymity that Israel would stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving as it prepares to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people south.
Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric on Saturday 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.
About half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are 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 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.
Large crowds demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, and hostages’ families protested outside the homes of ministers yesterday morning.
Twenty of the remaining 48 hostages are believed to still be alive.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 63,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and it has plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.
The Gaza health ministry yesterday said seven more people had died of malnutrition and starvation in the enclave, raising the number of such deaths to 339 people, including 124 children, since the war began.
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