Israel army tells Gaza City residents to leave

Palestinian Territories — AFP

The Israeli army has dropped thousands of leaflets over Gaza City urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive that has rocked the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory.

The leaflets, addressed to “everyone in Gaza City”, set out designated escape routes to the south and warned that the urban area, previously home to more than half a million people, would “remain a dangerous combat zone”.

The warning follows three partial evacuation orders and came as Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, have launched the heaviest combat operations the city has seen in months.

In one operation, the army claimed it had killed ‘militants’ and found weapons inside the long-vacated Gaza City headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Elsewhere across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools used as shelters in four days, sparking international outrage.

The upsurge in fighting and displacement came as mediator Qatar was due to resume talks for a truce and hostage release deal to end the relentless war, now grinding on into its 10th month.

An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha for the talks, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity.

CIA director William Burns was also expected in the Qatari capital.

The latest fighting in Gaza has newly displaced 350,000 civilians, said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, who spoke before the latest leaflet drop and said “there is absolutely no safe space in Gaza”.

One woman carrying her scant belongings through the bombed-out wasteland, Nimr al-Jamal, shared that “this is the 12th time” her family has had to flee.

“How many times can we endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?”

Hamas has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of escalating the fighting to derail the latest ceasefire talks.

The resistance group said this week the resurgent battles in Gaza were “the most intense in months”, while deadly strikes have also hit elsewhere across the territory, including inside a school in Khan Younis where children were playing football.

Israel’s military claimed it had “eliminated” Palestinian militants allegedly operating from inside the city’s UNRWA headquarters.

The UN agency’s head of communications Juliette Touma said it was hard to know if people were sheltering in the building “as we don’t have regular access to Gaza City”.

– ‘Death and misery’ –

The Israeli army said it was ‘reviewing’ the vicious attack on a school on Tuesday in which at least 29 children and women were killed.

Germany said the strike, which happened in the open field where children were playing football, was “unacceptable” and called for a rapid investigation into the incident.

“Civilians, especially children, must not get caught in the crossfire,” the foreign ministry posted on X. “The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and an investigation must come quickly.”

Raw footage showed the wounded being rushed to the nearby Nasser hospital, many screaming in pain, as relatives wailed in grief for the dead.

The Israeli military on the other hand, has claimed that the strike had killed a Hamas “terrorist” who had taken part in the October 7 attack. It acknowledged that the strikes hit “adjacent to the Al Awda school,” and that “the incident is under review.”

Lazzarini wrote on social media site X that “schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery”.

Israel has imposed a punishing siege on Gaza’s 2.4 million people.

Independent UN rights experts have again accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that constituted “a form of genocidal violence”.

Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva accused the panel’s members of “spreading misinformation” and “supporting Hamas propaganda”.