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SvennoJ on 04 April 2025
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Israeli army expands ground operation in north Gaza

In a statement on X, the military said its troops began operating in the Shujayea area in the northern Gaza Strip with the aim of “deepening control and expanding the security zone” in an apparent reference to Israel’s buffer zone along the Gaza fence.

As part of the operations, the army killed a number of “terrorists” and destroyed “terrorist infrastructure,” including a command and control centre used by Hamas, it said.

The Israeli army is allowing civilians “to evacuate the combat zone for their safety, via designated routes,” it added.

As we reported yesterday, at least 37 people were killed, including many women in and children, in Israeli attacks on north Gaza, specifically the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City.

‘Apocalyptic’: Level of suffering in hospital ‘hard to imagine’

The inside of al-Ahli Hospital [also known as the Baptist Hospital] is nothing short of an apocalyptic scene. Just on the way here, on entering the hospital, we’ve seen crying fathers and collapsed mothers on one side of the hospital courtyard.

Crying their hearts out over the bodies of their loved ones and family members killed, as of yesterday, in the mass bombardment of Shujayea or the attack on the schools where people were sheltering. We are seeing bodies laid on the ground and they are counted in the 10s.

We’ve seen doctors, they are helpless. They don’t know what to do. They are unable to save lives given the dire situation inside the hospital. We’ve seen surviving family members inside the hospital who are very concerned, very worried. They don’t know if even this place is safe for them to stay in or not.

But above all they look traumatised because many of them were pulled from under the rubble of bombed homes inside Shujayea.

Israeli forces continue attacks on southern Gaza

Israeli forces have carried out attacks on residential buildings in the city of Rafah. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

At least 38 Palestinians have been killed throughout the Gaza Strip since dawn in Israeli bombardment with 30 of the dead in the south. At least 17 people, some from the same family, were killed after an air strike hit the southern city of Khan Younis, according to hospital staff.

The attacks came a day after Israeli bombardment killed at least 100 Palestinians.


Gaza residents say ‘no shelter left’ as displacement crisis worsens

Over the past two weeks, more than 280,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA.

“I swear to God that I am staying in the street, there is no shelter here,” Hemam al-Rifi, 40, told Reuters news agency, noting that members of his family were killed when the Gaza City school complex they sheltered in was hit by Israel’s deadly strike on Thursday.

“My house was destroyed at first, and I stayed in a tent in a school, not a classroom, and now I don’t know where to go.”

Israel turns 60% of Gaza into ‘no-go’ zones: UN

Israel has now restricted Palestinians’ access to roughly two-thirds of Gaza either by declaring large areas as no-go zones or issuing forced displacement orders, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Among the restricted areas is a large swath of southern Rafah where Israel’s military issued a new displacement order on March 31, declaring it’s returning to “fight with great force”.

The restrictions also cover parts of northern Gaza City where Israeli troops launched a new ground offensive on Friday to expand their “security zone”.