Brutal Israeli offensive rendering Gaza City ‘completely uninhabitable’
Right now, Gaza City is defined by relentless bombardment from military operations that are leaving the landscape completely uninhabitable.
The Israeli military has deployed different military tactics to force people to leave Gaza City to the south – most notably excessive firepower, seen in the deliberate destruction of high-rise buildings.
We also have testimonies from eyewitnesses confirming that the Israeli military has deployed more booby-trapped vehicles to destroy what’s left of residential houses in the main urban centres of Gaza City.
More and more families are leaving these areas, and the death toll is soaring. We understand 78 Palestinians have been killed since dawn today.
Israeli ground forces have now been slowly moving into the main residential neighbourhoods in line with the stated Israeli objective of controlling Gaza City and breaking Hamas’s grip over the territory.
Israel says 40 percent of Gaza City residents have fled south
An Israeli army official has estimated 40 percent of Gaza City’s residents have fled the besieged city as troops move deeper into its centre.
Palestinians have been forced to flee south to the al-Mawasi encampment on the coast, where hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into a sea of tents without sanitation, regular water access or basic services.
More than 1 million Palestinians remain in northern Gaza: Authorities
Despite repeated Israeli forced displacement orders, Gaza’s Government Media Office says people in the north of the enclave remain “rooted” to their land.
The office said out of 1.3 million people in Gaza City and towns to its north, about 190,000 have fled to the south while 15,000 returned to the north due to the dire conditions in the areas that the Israeli army had designated as “safe zones”.
The local authorities noted that Israel has been regularly attacking Rafah and al-Mawasi near Khan Younis, where it told people to go.
“These areas completely lack the basic necessities of life, with no hospitals, no infrastructure, and no essential services such as water, food, shelter, electricity or education, making living there almost impossible,” the office said in a statement.
Smoke rises from an Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip on September 13
Devastating scenes as Palestinians forced to flee Gaza City
For many of the people who are trying to escape from Gaza City, it might be the final journey of displacement. They believe they may not return. The scenes are tragically consistent: vans, cars, trucks and donkey carts loaded with whatever these families had left in Gaza City.
Many people said in the initial days of the ground operation that they would not leave Gaza City. But, right now, Israel is burning the ground. They’re destroying every kind of civilian infrastructure and have cut off aid deliveries to the city, all for one clear purpose – to relocate them into the southern part of Gaza.
Some people are unable to afford the cost of transportation. We see exhausted faces, mothers carrying their babies, elderly people on foot.
What is so devastating to see is the vulnerability of children who have lost their parents and found themselves on the move again. They’re struggling to find any patch of land where they can stay in the absence of their parents and are completely reliant on strangers to survive.
Displaced Palestinians flee southwards in response to Israel’s intensified offensive on Gaza City
