Israeli aircraft and tanks have pounded the eastern and northern outskirts of Gaza City destroying buildings and homes, as Israeli leaders vowed to press on with an expanded large-scale offensive on the city.
Witnesses reported the sound of continuous explosions overnight from Saturday night into Sunday morning in the areas of Zeitoun and Shejaia. Meanwhile, tanks shelled houses and roads in the nearby Sabra neighbourhood and several buildings were blown up in the northern area of Jabaliya.
Fire lit the skies from the direction of the explosions, causing panic and prompting some families to stream out of the city. Other residents said they would prefer to die and not leave.
About half of Gaza’s roughly 2 million people currently live in Gaza City. A few thousand have already left, carrying their belongings on vehicles and rickshaws.
“I stopped counting the times I had to take my wife and three daughters and leave my home in Gaza City,” Mohammad, 40, told Reuters. “No place is safe, but I can’t take the risk. If they suddenly begin the invasion, they will use heavy fire.”
Others said they would not leave, despite the explosions. “We are not leaving, let them bomb us at home,” said Aya, 31, who had a family of eight, adding that they could not afford to buy a tent or pay for the transportation, even if they did try to leave. “We are hungry, afraid and don’t have money.”
Israel approved a plan earlier this month for an expanded military offensive to seize control of Gaza City. It is not expected to move forces into the largely destroyed city centre for a few weeks, leaving room for mediators Egypt and Qatar to try to resume ceasefire talks.
Still, Israeli forces have bombed the city and surrounding areas, and said on Sunday that forces had returned to combat in the Jabaliya area in recent days.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, on Sunday vowed to press on with the offensive, which has raised alarm abroad and objections at home. On Friday, Katz said that Gaza City would be razed unless Hamas militants agreed to end the war on Israel’s terms and release all the hostages it still holds.
Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City showed it was not serious about a ceasefire.
It said a ceasefire agreement was “the only way to return the hostages”, holding the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responsible for their lives.
UN-backed experts declared on Friday that an “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza’s largest city and its surrounding area amid deteriorating conditions that threaten increasing deaths across the devastated territory.
“This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading … If a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and basic health, nutrition and [sanitation and water] services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially.”
On Sunday, the Gaza health ministry said eight more people had died of malnutrition and starvation, raising deaths from such causes to 289 people, including 115 children, since the war started.
Israel is fighting allegations at the world’s top court of committing genocide in Gaza, where it has killed more than 60,000 people. Separately, the international criminal court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant. It also issued an arrest warrant for the Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, but later withdrew it after he was killed.
The Associated Press reported that Israeli forces had killed four people seeking food aid on Sunday as they travelled through a military zone south of Gaza City – an area regularly used by Palestinians trying to reach a food distribution point.
Al-Awda hospital and two witnesses told the Associated Press that the four Palestinians were killed when troops opened fire on a crowd heading to a site run by the Israeli-backed US contractor Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area. It occurred hundreds of metres away from the site, the witnesses said.
“The gunfire was indiscriminate,” Mohamed Abed, a father of two from the Bureij refugee camp, told Associated Press, adding that while many had fled, some people fell to the ground after being shot.
Abed and Aymed Sayyad, another Palestinian seeking food among the crowd, said troops opened fire when a group near the front of the crowd pushed forward toward a distribution site before its scheduled opening.
The Israeli military and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report