Smoke rises after an explosion during an Israeli operation in Gaza City on Thursday. Israel’s military is preparing to take Gaza’s largest urban centre despite international calls to reconsider.Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Israeli forces killed at least 16 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday and wounded dozens in the south of the enclave, local health officials said, as residents reported intensified military bombardment in the suburbs of Gaza City.
The military is preparing to take Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban centre, despite international calls on Israel to reconsider this over fears that the operation would cause significant casualties and displace the roughly one million Palestinians sheltering there.
In Gaza City, residents said families were fleeing their homes, with most heading towards the coast, as Israel forces bombarded the eastern suburbs of Shejaia, Zeitoun and Sabra. Thursday’s deaths took to 71 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.
Latest updates on Gaza City, Israel’s planned offensive and the Palestinian famine so far
Israel officials describe Gaza City as the last stronghold of Hamas, which ignited the war with its deadly attack on Israel in October of 2023. The Islamist militant group has since been decimated by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was continuing to operate throughout Gaza targeting what it described as “terrorist organizations” and infrastructure.
The military had killed three militants in the past day, it said, without saying how they had identified the individuals.
Displaced Palestinian families flee Gaza City towards the southern areas of the Gaza Strip, in Nuseirat, on Thursday.EYAD BABA/AFP/Getty Images
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Reuters that 31 “weapon-wounded” patients, most with gunshot wounds, were admitted to the Red Cross Field Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Four of them were declared dead on arrival.
“Patients said they were injured while trying to reach food distribution sites,” the spokesperson said, adding that since the food distribution sites began operations on May 27, the hospital had treated over 5,000 “weapon-wounded patients.”
In southern Gaza, dozens of Palestinians were admitted to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis with gunshot wounds, according to a doctor there who said the military had opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians that had gathered near an aid distribution site.
Mohammad Saqer, the head of nursing, told Reuters that most of the patients had been admitted with gunshot wounds to the upper parts of the body and that many were in critical condition.
The patients had reported they were shot as they sought to collect food from a distribution site in nearby Rafah, he said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Israel’s expanded military operation in Gaza City will have “devastating consequences,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.
He also said UN-led humanitarian efforts in the Palestinian enclave were being blocked, delayed and denied and people dying from hunger was the “result of deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity.”
“Starvation of the civilian population must never be used as a method of warfare. Civilians must be protected. Humanitarian access must be unimpeded,” he told reporters. “No more excuses. No more obstacles. No more lies.”
Displaced Palestinians flee from one area to another within Gaza City on Thursday. Residents said families were fleeing their homes, with most heading towards the coast.Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
The war broke out when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise, cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have since been released through diplomatic negotiations, though 50 remain, of whom 20 are said to be alive.
Israel has not responded publicly to Hamas’s acceptance of a proposal for a ceasefire that would allow for the return of some of the hostages.
Israel’s military campaign, which it says is directed toward Gaza’s rulers Hamas, has devastated the territory and displaced most of the roughly two million Palestinians there.
More than 62,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed by the Israeli military, according to local health officials, who have not said how many combatants have been killed in the fighting.
With the enclave in the grips of a humanitarian crisis, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday that four more people, including two children, had died of malnutrition and starvation in the enclave, raising deaths from such causes to 317 people, including 121 children, since the war started.
Israel disputes the Health Ministry’s fatality figures and on Wednesday asked a global hunger monitor to retract an assessment that found that Gaza City and surrounding areas are suffering from famine.