Israeli forces have intensified air strikes on Gaza City, flattening apartment blocks and large concrete buildings and prompting a sharp surge in civilian displacement as the military urged residents to evacuate immediately ahead of a planned ground offensive.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said about 250,000 people had left Gaza City and moved south after warnings from the military. The IDF also said it destroyed a high-rise it described as being used "to advance and execute terrorist attacks" against its troops. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Gaza City as Hamas's last major stronghold.
The intensification of strikes marks a sharp escalation in the campaign, which earlier this year had included more limited, targeted operations in the city. Residents and aid groups say entire apartment blocks and large concrete structures have been reduced to rubble in recent days, and people sheltering in schools and makeshift shelters have reported receiving warnings only moments before bombardment.
"We escaped certain death, my husband, our three children and I," said Saly Tafeesh, a mother now sheltering inside Gaza City. "My brother died in my arms after being shot by a quadcopter drone. We ran in the dark to the west of Gaza." Another resident, Rubein Khaled, a father of nine preparing to move south, said he felt pressured by religious appeals to stay. "The Hamas preacher at Friday prayers accused anyone leaving Gaza City of being a coward running from the battlefield," he said. "But why doesn't he tell Hamas leaders to surrender and release the Israeli hostages so this war can stop? We don't want to leave either, but we have no choice."
Humanitarian agencies and the United Nations have warned that an intensification of the offensive in an area where famine has already been declared would push civilians into an "even deeper catastrophe." Since U.N.-backed global food security experts confirmed a famine in Gaza City on Aug. 22, the Hamas-run health ministry has reported that at least 142 people have died from starvation and malnutrition across the territory. The ministry also said that 47 bodies killed by Israeli military action arrived at Gaza hospitals over the previous day.
Israeli officials have said they are expanding efforts to facilitate aid deliveries and have disputed the health ministry's figures on malnutrition-related deaths. The cost and difficulty of moving south have been cited by many families as obstacles: some displaced people told Reuters the journey can cost up to $1,100, a sum many cannot afford.
Hamas has urged residents to stay in Gaza City and resist evacuation. The interplay between military orders to leave, the logistical and financial barriers to doing so, and calls from Hamas to remain has left many civilians trapped between competing pressures.
The latest campaign also reverberated beyond Gaza. A strike earlier this week in Doha that killed five members of a Palestinian group and a Qatari security officer drew sharp criticism from Qatari officials. Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar's Foreign Ministry, told the BBC that the international community had "to deal with a Netanyahu problem," saying the Israeli leader was not listening to reason and accusing him of seeking to reshape the region. Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said Doha did not receive advance warning of the attack and only got a call from a U.S. official 10 minutes after it began. The strike, which Israel said targeted those responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, prompted condemnation at the U.N. Security Council.
The current Israeli military campaign began after the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. Since the start of the conflict, Gaza's health ministry has reported at least 64,803 people killed in Israeli attacks, figures that have been widely cited by Palestinian officials and aid groups but disputed by Israeli authorities.
Israeli forces have so far not reached some eastern neighbourhoods of Gaza City that remained largely intact after earlier raids in January, but the current scope of bombardment suggests a push to dismantle entire districts. The IDF said it was preparing for a major ground operation in the city.
International concern has centred on civilian protection and the delivery of humanitarian aid. The U.N. has repeatedly warned that further escalation, particularly in densely populated areas already hit by food shortages, would deepen the humanitarian crisis. Israel has defended its operations as necessary to degrade Hamas's military capabilities and to recover hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack.
As people continued to flee westward and southward, local medics and aid workers described mounting needs for food, water and medical care. The convergence of heavy bombardment, restricted movement, contested supply routes and rising malnutrition has left Gaza City's civilian population in a precarious position as the fighting intensifies.
