Smoke billows after an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Friday. Israel has said it intends to take full control of the ruined city.OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday, local health authorities said, most of them in Gaza City, where many residents are staying put despite Israeli evacuation orders because they have nowhere safe to go.
Israel has stated its intention to take full control of the ruined city, where about a million people are sheltering, as part of its plan to wipe out the militant group Hamas, and has been intensifying its attacks.
“The explosions never stopped since yesterday,” said father-of-two Adel, 60, who lives in Gaza City close to Beach refugee camp. He did not wish to give his full name for safety reasons.
“Many families left their homes and that is what the occupation wants,” he told Reuters via a chat app. “By these bombardments they are telling people, ’You either leave your area or die there.’”
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The army said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City this week, targeting more than 500 sites, and that it had destroyed reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
In a statement, it said it would “continue to intensify the pace of strikes in a focused manner, based on precise intelligence, with the aim of hitting Hamas’ infrastructure.”
Palestinian health authorities said several deadly strikes had hit targets in the south of the territory, where some of those fleeing the bombardment of Gaza City have been heading.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, which liaises with the UN and international aid groups, told Reuters an estimated 10 per cent of people in Gaza City had left since Israel announced its plan to take control a month ago.
The Israeli army said it had started expanding an area of the southern Gaza Strip it calls “Crossing 147” in order to increase the volume of aid entering a designated humanitarian zone. This was in preparation to receive the population leaving the northern area, it said.
“It should be emphasized that upon completion, the crossing’s intake capacity will rise to 150 trucks per day – triple the current level, thereby enabling increased entry of aid, with an emphasis on food,” the army said in a statement.
Palestinians walk past a destroyed building after an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Friday.OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP/Getty Images
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly voted to endorse a declaration outlining “tangible, timebound, and irreversible steps” towards a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
The seven-page declaration is the result of an international conference at the UN in July – hosted by Saudi Arabia and France – on the decades-long conflict. The United States and Israel boycotted the event.
A resolution endorsing the declaration received 142 votes in favor and 10 against, while 12 countries abstained.
The vote comes ahead of a meeting of world leaders on Sept. 22 where Canada, Britain, France, Australia and Belgium are expected to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
The declaration condemns the attacks against Israel by Palestinian militants Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
It also condemns the attacks by Israel against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, siege and starvation, “which have resulted in a devastating humanitarian catastrophe and protection crisis.”
Israel rejected the UN declaration.
“Once again, it has been proven how much the General Assembly is a political circus detached from reality: in the dozens of clauses of the declaration endorsed by this resolution, there is not a single mention that Hamas is a terrorist organization,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a post on X on Friday.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Israeli police said an attacker from a Palestinian area of the West Bank had been arrested after carrying out a stabbing attack on guests of a hotel at a kibbutz near Jerusalem.
Israel’s ambulance service said two people had been taken to hospital.