Israeli armed forces said yesterday (Thursday) that they had captured 40 percent of the city of Gaza, while Civil Defense said at least 64 people had been killed in Israeli raids across the Palestinian enclave, which has been largely flattened after nearly 23 months of war.

The Israeli military intensified its bombing and hand-to-hand operations in Gaza City in the past two weeks.

However, neither the staff nor the government of Benjamin Netanyahu have so far announced the start of the main operation to take the city, as envisaged in a plan approved in August.

According to civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal, among the 64 Palestinians killed yesterday, 30 were in Gaza City (north), presented by the Israeli military as the last major Hamas stronghold in the small coastal region.

“Today, we control 40 percent of the Gaza City area,” said armed forces spokesman Efi Defrin, during televised remarks.

“The operation will continue and expand in the coming days (…) We will increase the pressure on Hamas until its defeat,” he added.

According to UN estimates released a few weeks ago, nearly a million people are in that city and its surroundings. Thousands have already fled.

Yesterday, an Israeli army officer said he expects “one million” people to leave, moving in a southerly direction.

“The unthinkable is already here”

The Israeli army reckons it currently controls about 75% of the Gaza Strip, an area of 365 square kilometres where some two million Palestinians, who have been forced to be displaced repeatedly since the war broke out, live under siege. The UN has declared a state of famine in parts of the enclave, which the Israeli government denies.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government reiterates that it means to take security control of the area and eliminate the threat of Hamas, in power there since 2007.

It continues operations despite intense pressure at home and abroad to silence the guns and secure the release of hostages kidnapped during the October 7, 2023, storming of southern Israel by Hamas’ military arm in southern Israel, the trigger for the armed conflict.

“The unthinkable is not threatened, it’s already here,” Tess Ingram, a spokeswoman for UNICEF, who was visiting Gaza City, told Al-Mawashi. “If there is no immediate and increased access to food (…) more children will die of hunger,” she warned.

Every day, civil defense reports dozens of deaths in Israeli operations.

But given the restrictions imposed on the media in the Gaza Strip and the impossibility of access to many sectors, the French Agency notes that it is unable to independently verify the accounts and announcements of either side.

Mr. Bassal said a strike on displaced persons tents in Gaza City killed five people, including three children.

The Israeli army said it targeted a “Hamas terrorist” and added that it was “sorry” if “innocent civilians” were harmed.

Outside the Sifa hospital, where the bodies of victims of the strike were taken, a woman was crying as she stroked her son’s head on a stretcher. “Why did you leave me, son? Why?” she repeated.

“They are killing our children”

In the Nusayrat sector (central), Mr. Bassal referred to an Israeli strike, and there to displaced persons tents, with seven dead, including three children. The Israeli army said it was not aware of any strikes there.

“They are imposing starvation on us, depriving us of water, displacing us and killing our children in front of the whole world,” Um Nabil al-Aish, who lost relatives in the bombing, broke out.

The 7 October 2023 assault resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to a French News Agency count based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 47 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip, but 25 of them have been declared dead by the Israeli army.

Large-scale Israeli military retaliatory operations have killed at least 64,231 people in the Palestinian enclave, the majority of them civilians, according to the most recent figures from the Hamas government’s health ministry, considered reliable by the UN.

Israel’s foreign ministry yesterday rejected a statement made by Spanish European Commission vice-president Theresa Rivera in Paris yesterday, speaking of “genocide” in the Gaza Strip. But independent UN experts and NGOs also denounce Israel as committing genocide in the Palestinian enclave.

Meanwhile, Hamas announced yesterday that a meeting was held in Doha, the capital of Qatar, between its officials and Abbas Araghchi, the head of diplomacy for Iran, a sworn enemy of Israel.