Israel blasts Gaza City neighborhoods, residents have no refuge : NPR
Families leave the districts of northern Gaza City with the few articles they can transport on August 26, after Israeli tanks and air strikes formulated them.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Gaza City, Gaza Strip – The Israeli army says that it has taken control of almost half of Gaza City while it is preparing for a large -scale ground offensive to fully occupy its densely populated urban center.
Israeli military spokesperson Brig. General Effie Defrin said in a press briefing The army now has an “operational control” of 40% of Gaza City and will continue to extend and intensify the offensive in the coming days. The army recalled around 60,000 war reservists to support the vast operation, which, according to Israel, aims to return hostages and dismantle the rule of Hamas.
Last week, the soldiers told everyone the city of Gaza a “dangerous combat zone” and struck high -rise buildings in the city’s central and Western districts. These areas, including its western shore, have been crowded for months with displaced people and tents.
Already, entire districts on the outskirts of the city of Gaza have been leveled by Israeli strikes and thousands of displaced Palestinian families. In the past three weeks, the civil defense of Gaza, or the first speakers, say that Israel destroyed some 1,500 houses in the districts of Zaytoun and Sabra from the city of East Gaza. This destruction can also be seen on satellite images.
The assault against Gaza City – once the beating heart of the territory and its shopping and cultural center – intervenes almost two years in the War of Israel in Gaza which killed more than 64,200 people, a third, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The war began in October 2023 with an attack led by Hamas against Israel which, according to the authorities, killed nearly 1,200 people and took hostages.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to reservists this week who received the order of Gaza to achieve this next phase of the war, describing it as a “decisive scene” aimed at defeating Hamas.
Netanyahu has the tacit support of President Trump for this Gaza City offensive, despite hundreds of former Israeli security officials saying that Hamas no longer represents a threat and that it is time to end the war. There have also been great protests in Israel demanding a cease-fire that releases hostages held by Hamas.
After President Trump’s call for Hamas to disclose Israeli hostages, the group said it was ready for an agreement to release them in exchange for Palestinians organized in Israeli prisons. But the Israeli government has rejected the offer, rejecting it as “spin”.
Netanyahu and her far -right coalition are rather determined to extend the war. The Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, explained this vision of Gaza, saying that the areas of the enclave must be annexed by Israel and that the Gaza doors have opened for the Palestinians to leave. He also said that Israel should cut the water and food to those who stay in Gaza City.
A Palestinian man rests with his children and a few personal effects on the sidewalk in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City after fled an Israeli assault on his district further north on August 26.
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No sure way or worthy of forcibly moving people
The United Nations help agencies, as well as France, the United Kingdom and other Western governments, urged Israel to stop the assault by Gaza City, warning of an even greater humanitarian crisis.
Already, the main hunger experts have declared a famine in the city of Gaza due to the Israeli aid restrictions. As part of the upcoming assault, Israel will eliminate aid to Gaza City to move the population to the south, according to a person informed by Israeli officials on the plan. The person spoke under the cover of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the plan publicly.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says that the evacuation of the city of Gaza cannot be done in a safe or dignified manner, calling it “incomprehensible and incomprehensible”. He noted that people are hungry, injured and unable to move, and that no area in Gaza can manage an influx of displaced people due to extreme shortages of food, water, shelters and medical care across the territory.
Israel has tried to take control of Gaza City before in this war, besieging it and launching raids in its streets, but tens of thousands of people stayed. Many others returned to the city during a temporary ceasefire earlier this year.
However, the Israeli army insists that the complete evacuation of Gaza City this time is “inevitable”.
In private, the army warns against the risks of its plan. The military chief of staff says that Israel may need to enforce the military regime against the Palestinians of Gaza City by November, according to the person informed by Israeli officials.
A man drags articles in a makeshift trolley in front of the buildings that were bombed by Israeli strikes in northern Gaza City on August 26.
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Israeli troops surround the city of Gaza, forcing families to flee
The noise of noisy explosions can be heard and seen in the north of Gaza City, day and night. This is where Israeli troops explode houses and buildings.
Dozens of people have been killed in Israeli strikes across the city in recent days, according to the Ministry of Health. Israeli tanks now surround the coastal city of the north, south and east.
Israeli drones have opened fire in Palestinian families in the northern regions of the city of Gaza, according to people fleeing these areas as cited by NPR.
“The drones ordered us to leave and opened fire on us, just like the tanks,” said Tahiya Abu Warda, a 54-year-old grandmother with her grandson.
Abud Warda and others spoke at NPR while they arrived in the Sheikh Radwan district north of Gaza City last week, which was itself forcibly evacuated a few days later and under a heaviness Israeli bombardment.
Abu Warda said she had fled with her grandson only with clothes on her back. She did not have time to separate the fortune tent in which she lived and is homeless now. His grandson was held alongside him thirsty for the water, but there was none.
Other families have been seen pushing and drawing makeshift cars stacked with empty mattresses, clothes, clothes and other bases necessary for survival.
Israel orders the population of Gaza City in the south, but there is no space
In a recent article on social networks, the military promised “abundant humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians who flee south. This aid, however, has not yet been seen. The soldiers rather shared photos of smiling Palestinians at the top of the cars with their property. South car roads cost thousands of dollars largely due to the high price of fuel, which Israel is limited to Gaza and is in shortage.
Ibrahim Abu Humeidan, father of two, told NPR that his family had been moved 17 or 18 times during the war. He said he had lost the exact count. He said the soldiers had dismissed “without discrimination” against people to scare them away from his district of Saftawi.
“I’m here, thrown into the street, without money. They tell us to move south. How?” He said, when he rested with some of his personal effects on a sidewalk in Gaza City. “I have no money to go south. I don’t even have money to feed my children.”
Abu Humeidan said there was no space in Gaza City or in southern Gaza to install a tent.
The army called on such declarations of “false rumors”. He recently published cards, he indicates that “empty zones” of large “where people can install tents in the south of Gaza.
Israeli professor Yaakov Garb, an expert in environmental studies who examines land models in Gaza, used satellite imagery to analyze the military card and found that the areas that the military point as empty are either in red military areas that are prohibited from Palestinians, or for weeks, tents can be erased.
“These designations, as far as I can see, seem to be quite far from what is really happening in the field and the needs of the population,” said Garb.
“It is so far from what could be considered as a kind of planning of displaced populations,” he said, noting that this lack of army planning occurs “before an emergency they are about to create”.
Batrawy reported to Dubai and Baba de Gaza City. Daniel Estrin contributed Tel Aviv’s reports, Israel.
