Thousands of Palestinians continue to flee Gaza City as Israel’s major ground offensive, aimed at occupying the area, enters its second day.
Israel states its objective is to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and to defeat up to 3,000 fighters in what it characterizes as the group’s “last stronghold.” However, the offensive has elicited widespread international condemnation.
Leaders of over 20 prominent aid organizations, including Save the Children and Oxfam, have cautioned that “the inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable.”
This comes a day after a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza – an allegation the Israeli government vehemently denies.
Amidst intense Israeli bombardment, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reported that al-Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza City was struck in three separate Israeli attacks on Tuesday night, prompting approximately half of its patients to evacuate.
A source at the hospital indicated that while there were no injuries, air conditioning units, water tanks, and solar panels sustained significant damage.
“This hospital is the only specialist facility for children with cancer, kidney failure, and other life-threatening conditions,” stated Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has stated it is investigating these reports.
The IDF announced on Wednesday morning that it had struck over 150 targets across Gaza City in two days to support its ground troops.
As part of its operations, the IDF is reportedly utilizing modified, remotely controlled military vehicles loaded with explosives. According to Israeli media, these vehicles are being driven to Hamas positions and detonated.
Resident Nidal al-Sherbi told the BBC Arabic’s Middle East Daily programme: “Last night was extremely difficult, with continuous explosions and shelling that lasted from night until dawn.”
“Israeli vehicles advanced from Sheikh Radwan, Tal al-Hawa, and also from Shejaiya. It was a very, very frightening night.”
For days, as Israel has intensified strikes in and around the city, substantial numbers of Palestinians have been moving southwards in donkey carts, rickshaws, vehicles laden with belongings, and on foot.
Until now, they have been forced to flee down the main coastal road to an Israel-designated “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi.
However, on Wednesday, the IDF announced it would temporarily open a second route for people to travel on – the central Salah al-Din road. The IDF stated the route would be open for 48 hours from 12:00 local time (10:00 BST).
Many Palestinians report being unable to move south due to the escalating costs associated with the journey. Some say renting a small truck now costs the equivalent of £660 ($900), while a tent for five people sells for approximately £880 ($1,200).
Aid groups, UN agencies, and others maintain that the “humanitarian area” to which they are expected to move is severely overcrowded and inadequate to support the roughly two million Palestinians anticipated to crowd into it.
Some who followed the military’s orders to evacuate to the zone report finding no space to pitch their tents and subsequently returned north.
“Everyday leaflets are thrown at us ordering evacuation, while the Israeli army shells buildings in every direction,” Munir Azzam, who is in northern Gaza, told the BBC. “But where can we go? We have no refuge in the South.”
The IDF stated on Tuesday that approximately 350,000 people had fled Gaza City, while the UN put the figure at 190,000 since August. Estimates suggest at least 650,000 remain.
Gaza’s health ministry stated on Wednesday that 98 people had been killed and 385 injured by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours. An additional four people had died from malnutrition, taking the total number of malnutrition-related deaths since a UN-backed body declared famine in Gaza City in late August to 154, it added.
Meanwhile, families of the 48 remaining hostages held by Hamas – 20 of whom are believed to be alive – protested near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday and Wednesday, arguing that the offensive would endanger their loved ones.
“All day long, you boast about killing and destruction,” said Macabit Mayer, aunt of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman. “Bringing down buildings in Gaza – who are you bringing these buildings down on?”
Pope Leo XIV, meanwhile, stated conditions for Palestinians in Gaza were “unacceptable” and reiterated his call for a ceasefire.
“I am deeply close to the Palestinian people of Gaza, who continue to live in fear and under unacceptable conditions, forced yet again to leave their land,” he told his weekly audience at the Vatican.
Elsewhere, the European Union’s main executive body, the European Commission, proposed imposing sanctions on Israel over its conduct during the Gaza war and its decision to advance the E1 settlement project, which would effectively divide the occupied West Bank in two.
The proposal includes suspending some trade-related provisions of the EU’s association agreement with Israel, as well as sanctions on “extremist ministers” in the Israeli government and violent Israeli settlers. The settlements are illegal under international law.
Israel has warned the EU not to impose the measures, which do not currently have sufficient support from member states to pass.
Among the findings of the UN commission of inquiry’s report, which concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, was that Israeli security forces had perpetrated sexual and gender-based violence, directly targeted children with the intention to kill them, and carried out a “systemic and widespread attack” on religious, cultural and education sites.
Israel’s foreign ministry stated it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false.”
Israel launched its war 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 65,062 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, almost half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
With famine having already been declared in Gaza City by a UN-backed food security body, the UN has warned that an intensification of the offensive will push civilians into “even deeper catastrophe.”
Additional reporting by Rushdi Abualouf
Simon Opher and Peter Prinsley say they were heading to the occupied West Bank when they were stopped by Israeli authorities.
It comes as a UN commission of inquiry found that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Palestinians tell the BBC whole residential blocks have been levelled as the Israeli army ramps up its offensive in the city.
The panel finds that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out against Palestinians during the war.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is one of the longest-running in the world.