Israel ramps up strikes on Gaza City, hospital says 32 are dead : NPR
Smoke and flames increase after an Israeli military strike in a building in Gaza City on Friday September 12, 2025.
Youf al Zanoun / AP
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Youf al Zanoun / AP
Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip-A barrage of air strikes killed at least 32 people in the city of Gaza while Israel increases its offensive there and urges the Palestinians to evacuate, the medical staff reported on Saturday.
The dead included 12 children, according to the morgue of the Shifa hospital, where the bodies were brought.
Israel, in recent days, has intensified strikes in the city of Gaza, destroying several high -rise buildings and accusing Hamas of putting surveillance equipment.
On Saturday, the army said that it had struck another height used by Hamas in the Gaza City region. He ordered residents to leave, part of an offensive aimed at taking over the largest Palestinian city, which, according to Hamas, is the last bastion of Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of people remain there, in difficulty in famine conditions.
One of the strikes during the night and early in the morning on Saturday hit a house in the Sheikh Radwan district, killing a family of 10 people, including a mother and three children, said health officials. The Palestinian Football Association said that a player from the Al-Helal Sporting Club, Mohammed Ramez Sultan, had been killed in strikes with 14 family members. The images showed the strikes struck with smoke plumes.
The army of Israel did not immediately answer questions about strikes.
The parents of the hostages come together in Israel
Meanwhile, parents of Israeli hostages held by Hamas gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand an agreement to release their loved ones and criticized what they said to be a counterproductive approach to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to obtain a resolution.
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, described as a “spectacular failure”, the attempted assassination by Israel of Hamas leaders in Qatar this week.
“President Trump said yesterday that each time there was progress in negotiations, Netanyahu’s bombs someone. But it was not the leaders of Hamas that he tried to bomb – it was our chance, as families, to bring our loved ones home,” said Zangauker.
Some Palestinians leave Gaza City but many are stuck
In the wake of the climbing of hostilities and calls to evacuate the city, the number of people who have left has increased in recent weeks, according to workers. However, many families remain stuck due to the cost of searching for transport and accommodation, while others have been moved too many times and do not want to move again, without trusting that in the enclave is safe.
In a message on social networks on Saturday, the Israeli army told other Palestinians from Gaza City to leave “immediately” and move south in what it calls a humanitarian area. Army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said that more than a quarter of a million people had left Gaza City – compared to around 1 million people who live in the North Gaza region around the city.
The United Nations, however, put the number of people who left around 100,000 between mid-August and mid-September. The UN and the aid groups have warned that moving hundreds of thousands of people would exacerbate the casualness of the humanitarian crisis. The sites in the south of Gaza where Israel tells people to go is overcrowded, according to the UN, and it can cost money to move, which many people do not have.
An initiative led by the UN to bring temporary shelters to Gaza said that more than 86,000 tents and other supplies were still waiting to enter Gaza last week.
The Ministry of Health of Gaza said on Saturday that seven people, including children, died of causes linked to malnutrition in the past 24 hours, passing the toll to 420, including 145 children, since the start of the war.
The bombing Friday evening through Gaza City occurred a few days after Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar, intensifying its campaign against the militant group and implemented negotiations at the end of the war in Gaza.
The families of the hostages still held in Gaza applaud with Israel to stop the offensive, fearing that it kills their loved ones. There are 48 hostages still inside Gaza, about 20 of them that would be alive.
The war in Gaza began when activists led by Hamas broke into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, removing 251 people and killing some 1,200, mainly civilians. Israel’s reprisal offensive killed at least 64,803 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not say how many civilians or combatants. He says that around half of the people killed were women and children. Large parts of the large cities have been completely destroyed and around 90% of some 2 million Palestinians were moved.
