Palestinians living in the heart of Gaza’s largest city said on Wednesday that the Israeli forces had moved into the inner neighbourhoods of Gaza City and were closing in from all directions.
This has accelerated the exodus of thousands of civilians as food and water continues to be scarce and fighting rages between Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and Israeli troops.
Throngs of people filled Salah al-Din Street, Gaza’s main highway leading south, on Wednesday, appearing to be in greater numbers than on Tuesday, the United Nations said. The Israeli army claimed that 50,000 people had left north Gaza for the south of the narrow coastal strip on Wednesday.
Around 15,000 people had fled on Tuesday, compared with 5,000 on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Over 70 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have already left their homes since the war began when Hamas attacked Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and seized 239 hostages.
Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel retaliated with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip that, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, has killed more than 10,500 people, many of them children.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza.
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"We know the civil situation in the Gaza Strip is not an easy one," said Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of coordination and liaison at COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body handling civil affairs in Gaza. "But I can say that there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip," he told reporters at the Nitzana border post between Israel and Egypt. (Read here)
Israeli troops and Hamas were locked in heavy, close-quarters fighting in Gaza City on Thursday, including a 10-hour battle that Israel said toppled one of the Palestinian militants' strongholds.
Hamas fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and assault rifles were clashing with Israeli soldiers backed by armoured vehicles in the ruins of the besieged territory's north.
Broken palm trees, mangled road signs and twisted lampposts marked the remains of what was once north Gaza's main arterial route, an AFP journalist saw while embedded with Israeli troops on a controlled visit.
A social media influencer was arrested in France on Thursday for making light of the reported killing of an Israel baby by Hamas attackers, prosecutors told AFP.
In a video, the woman -- identified by media as Warda Anwar, a model -- commented on a report by an Israeli first responder who said Hamas attackers had burned a baby alive in an oven during their assault on October 7.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children.” Here’s how the Israel-Hamas war has impacted young Palestinians, by the numbers. pic.twitter.com/YIrC2nqDOd
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 8, 2023
A Hamas official told AFP that evacuations of wounded Palestinians and dual nationals were interrupted Wednesday despite a large crowd waiting at the crossing terminal, blaming what they said was Israel's refusal to approve the list of wounded to be taken across the border
"As deaths and injuries in Gaza continue to rise due to intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems pose an added danger: the rapid spread of infectious diseases," WHO said. "Some worrying trends are already emerging."
WHO said that more than 33,551 cases of diarrhoea had been reported since mid-October, the bulk of which among children under five
Families walked together, with men and women carrying young children or pushing the elderly on makeshift carts. Most had only a few belongings in backpacks.
They appeared to be in greater numbers than Tuesday, when the U.N. said about 15,000 people streamed southward -- which in turn was triple the number the day before.
Majed Haroun, a teacher who remains in Gaza City, said women and children who lost families go door to door begging for food. “No words can describe what we are experiencing,” he said.