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Israeli forces are reportedly intensifying their operations on the outskirts of Gaza City, according to residents, amid heightened military preparations for a ground offensive aimed at seizing control.
Medical facilities have reported that women and children are among over 30 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes within the city on Wednesday, with the majority of casualties occurring in the northern and western sectors.
The Israeli military’s chief of staff has affirmed the commitment to “continue striking Hamas’s centres of gravity until it is defeated” and all hostages are freed.
The UN and humanitarian organizations have stated that the Israeli operations are already resulting in “horrific humanitarian consequences” for displaced families sheltering in the city, which houses a million people and where a famine was declared last month.
Concurrently, Israeli protesters participated in a “day of disruption,” urging their government to promptly agree to a deal that would end the conflict in exchange for the release of all 48 Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.
Hospital officials reported that Israeli strikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of at least 46 individuals since midnight.
Gaza City’s Shifa hospital indicated it received the bodies of 21 people, including five fatalities from an Israeli airstrike targeting an apartment in the western Fisherman’s Port area.
One of the strikes resulted in the death of the parents and two sisters of three-year-old Ibrahim al-Mabhuh, as reported by his grandmother.
Umm Abu al-Abed Abu al-Jubein informed Reuters that she discovered him buried under the rubble of a destroyed column in the home where the displaced family from the nearby town of Jabalia had sought refuge.
“He is the only one that God saved… We woke up to the boy screaming,” she said.
First responders stated that Israeli drones also dropped incendiary bombs near a clinic overnight in the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, where reports indicate troops and tanks were advancing.
Videos circulating on social media overnight appeared to show a fire adjacent to an ambulance within the Sheikh Radwan Clinic’s compound, and another ambulance ablaze on a nearby street.
Residents also conveyed to Reuters that Israeli forces dropped grenades on three schools in Sheikh Radwan being used as shelters for displaced families, setting tents on fire, and detonated armoured vehicles laden with explosives to destroy homes in the east of the neighbourhood.
“Sheikh Radwan is being burnt upside-down. The occupation [Israel] destroyed houses, burnt tents, and drones played audio messages ordering people to leave the area,” said Zakeya Sami, a 60-year-old mother of five.
The Israeli military stated that it was reviewing the reports.
During a visit to Gaza on Wednesday, the military’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, told troops: “We have entered the second phase of Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ to fulfil the objectives of the war.”
“Returning our hostages is both a moral and national mission. We will continue striking Hamas’s centres of gravity until it is defeated.”
Hamas denounced what it characterized as “operations of systematic destruction” by Israeli forces in Gaza City, asserting that they constituted “an unprecedented violation” of international law.
UN agencies and their humanitarian partners in the Gaza Site Management Cluster stated that the announcement of intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza City on 7 August was “having horrific humanitarian consequences for people in displacement sites, many of whom were earlier displaced from North Gaza [governorate]”, which includes Jabalia.
They warned that many households were unable to move due to high costs and logistical challenges, as well as a lack of safe space. And they said forcing hundreds of thousands to move south could amount to forcible transfer under international law.
Since 14 August, more than 82,000 people had been newly displaced, according to the cluster. Most people moved towards the crowded coast. Only a third have left for southern Gaza, as the Israeli military has instructed.
The military has told them to head to the al-Mawasi area, saying medical care, water and food will be provided. However, the UN has the tent camps there are overcrowded and unsafe, and that southern hospitals are operating at several times their capacity.
On Tuesday, five children were killed while queuing for water at a tent camp in al-Mawasi. Witnesses said they were struck by an Israeli drone.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that a strike in the area had targeted a “key Hamas terrorist” and that that it was “aware of claims regarding casualties as a result of the strike”. The incident was “under review”, it added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s intention to conquer all of Gaza after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down in July.
The hostages’ families fear the offensive will endanger those held in Gaza City and want the prime minister to instead negotiate an agreement that would secure their release.
Regional mediators have presented a proposal that would see 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages released during a 60-day truce. However, Netanyahu has said he will only accept a comprehensive deal that would see them all freed and Hamas disarmed.
On Wednesday, Israelis demanding an immediate deal set fire to tyres and rubbish bins and damaged parked cars in Jerusalem.
Thirteen were arrested after they climbed on the roof of the National Library and displayed a banner that said: “You have abandoned and also killed.”
Some hostages’ relatives addressed a large crowd near the prime minister’s residence.
They included Ofir Braslavski, the father of Rom Braslavski, 21, who was seen emaciated and injured in a video sent by his Islamic Jihad captors in early August.
“My son Rom is dying, starving, and tortured. You can see in his eyes that he no longer wants to live. There is nothing harder a father can witness when he cannot do anything,” he said, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
“How is it possible that a month after my son’s video was released, showing the horrors there, the government leaves him there? And the prime minister wants to conquer more territory? I can’t understand that.”
US President Donald Trump, who helped broker the previous ceasefire and hostage release deal in January, wrote on social media: “Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!”
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 63,746 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The ministry also says 367 people, have so far died during the war as a result of malnutrition and starvation, including six over the past 24 hours.
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