Defiance in Gaza City as Israel shows aid sites planned for evacuees

Israel has ordered the entire population of Gaza City to leave, while its forces are preparing to capture the north of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli air strikes have continued to destroy the tour of the tour, and the army says that it now has operational control of 40% in the city, while land forces are preparing to fight what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Hamas’ last important bastion.

Netanyahu said this week that 100,000 people had left the city, but up to a million people still lived there – a lot in tents or shelters. Many of them say they will not leave – or cannot -.

After a strike struck a tower near his home today, Ammar Sukkar called Hamas negotiators to negotiate from a tent, and not to air -conditioned rooms in Qatar – and insisted that he would remain in the city.

“Whether you like it or not, Netanyahu, we don’t leave,” he told a local freelancer working for the BBC. “Will deal with Hamas, go kill them. We are not to blame. And even if we are buried here, we are not leaving. It’s my land.”

Wael Shaban, also living near the tower that had been targeted today, said that they had 15 minutes to flee before the strike.

“When we returned, the tents, the flour, everything has disappeared. Nothing is left. It is a question of putting us pressure to go south, but we do not have the money to go. We cannot even allow ourselves to eat. Transport south costs 1,500 shekels.”

The army of Israel said to residents of Gaza City that there is a lot of shelters, food and water in so -called humanitarian areas further south.

But help organizations say that the areas to which they are sent are already largely overcrowded and lack food and medical resources. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has only declared nowhere to Gaza can currently absorb such an important movement of people, describing the mass evacuation plan as “unrealizable” and “incomprehensible”.

The Israeli army is currently building a new aid distribution site near Rafah, 30 km (18 miles) in the south. He indicates that he also provides thousands of additional tents and poses a new pipeline in Egypt.

The BBC went to the region, as part of military integration, to see the new site. This is the first time that the BBC has been authorized to enter the whole since December 2023.

Military integrations are offered at the discretion of Israel, are highly controlled and offer no access to Palestinians or areas not under Israeli military control – but they are currently the only way for BBC journalists to enter Gaza.

Israel does not allow press organizations, including BBC, in Gaza to present itself independently.

Rafah is a reminder of what happened the last time the Israeli Prime Minister sent his forces in a city to crush “the last bastion” of Hamas.

Going down the newly paved military road along the Gaza border with Egypt, we pass the broken remains of the former border crossing of Rafah, the roof of a cracked and pancaked building on the ground.

Further along the road, known as Philadelphi corridor, discreet masonry heaps and exploded metal, mapped where each house or building was located.

The city of Rafah itself, close to the new help site, was completely swallowed in the desert. Always and silent, his life erased; Only a few structures marked by pockets hold the sea of ​​rubble dotted for miles through the sand.

It was easy to spot the new terrestrial beams and the concrete breath blocks out of the landscape filled with rubble beyond, near Tel El-Sultan.

A short car trip from the main crossing point in Kerem Shalom, the corner of the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area, where many displaced people have been sheltered, is just visible on the coast.

“The idea is a safe and fast road,” said the Israeli military spokesman, the lieutenant. Nadav Shoshani. “Also a short distance as possible for trucks and for people who arrive. We can guarantee a looting of 0%.”

We have been shown two separate areas, each about 100 m wide, where Israeli forces said that unloading and distribution could be carried out in a continuous loop.

Inside a perimeter wall, two American trucks were already parked on the sand.

Israel says that the new aid distribution sites will be given to Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), supported by Israel, in the coming days, and security here – as in other GHF sites – will be provided by private American security forces, with Israeli troops securing the area around.

But the UN says that more than 1,100 people have been killed while trying to access GHF sites since they started working in May.

The Col Shoshani said that many lessons had been learned about how the sites had been installed.

“You can see the sand banks, concrete walls, which very clearly indicates where you are supposed to go and make sure that people do not approach troops and do not engage in a dangerous situation,” he said. “What is [also] It is important to know how close they are – at a very short walk from the place where people are. It makes it easier, but also safer. “”

But some of them who said to leave Gaza City say that it will not be sure elsewhere, after repeated Israeli strikes on targets in shelters, tents and designated humanitarian zones.

“This is the MO of Hamas (operating mode),” said Lieutenant Col Shoshani. “That says: No, don’t go, you’re our shields! Don’t move south!”

“A year ago, we carried out a similar operation [in Rafah] It has succeeded, “he said.” Civilians were able to get out of the line of fire, the maximum Hamas terrorists are dead, that’s what we want to achieve in Gaza City. “”

Rafah residents were evacuated before the floor operation in May 2024 – “temporarily” the army said – traveling travels along the coast. The area they left is still under military control.

But evacuating Gaza City – and fighting Hamas in its tunnels and streets – will be a more difficult and more dangerous task.

Hamas fighters are turning more and more towards insurrection tactics and guerrilla attacks. Earlier this week, four Israeli soldiers were killed during an attack on the outskirts of Gaza City.

The leaders of Israel, on the other hand, undergo an intense pressure at the home house hostage, who say that the plans to take the city are a death sentence for living parents detained there.

Benjamin Netanyahu – incessant by criticism at home – has previously boasted of his determination to look at the international opposition and to advance with his offensive in Rafah.

Now, with the prospects of a dead ceasefire contract, and up to a million gas exhausted in the fire line, he tells his criticisms that another offensive is between him and victory over Hamas.