Displaced Palestinians fled Gaza City overnight on Thursday (18 September), moving southwards after Israeli forces ordered residents of the city to evacuate to the south.
Many people were driving cars, trucks and carts loaded with belongings, as some walked along the coastal road in central Gaza.
"We are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this barefoot, we don't know where to go," said displaced Palestinian fleeing Gaza City, Yasser Saleh.
"We left at around four in the afternoon and here we are, we arrived at six in the morning. There is a lot of traffic. You can't access a bathroom, it is humiliating. We have children with us, they are ill. We have a young child, he is about to die (he is suffering), he is 45 days old. And the situation is difficult, it is devastating. The situation is difficult," he said.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was opening an additional route for 48 hours that Palestinians could use to leave Gaza City as it stepped up efforts to empty the city of civilians and confront thousands of Hamas combatants.
Israel says the offensive to take control of Gaza City is part of a plan to defeat Hamas for good and that it has warned civilians to head south to a designated humanitarian zone.
An official said Israel expected around 100,000 civilians to remain in the city, which would take months to capture, and said the operation could be suspended if a ceasefire was reached.
Concerns for aid
Meanwhile, the United Nations voiced grave concerns on Wednesday about food and other supplies running out in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people were already experiencing famine, after Israel closed the only crossing there last week.
Many people sheltering in the city are reluctant to follow Israel's orders to move south because of the dangers along the way, dire conditions, a lack of food in the southern area, and fear of permanent displacement.
"Even if we want to leave Gaza City, is there any guarantee we would be able to come back? Will the war ever end? That's why I prefer to die here, in Sabra, my neighbourhood," Ahmed, a schoolteacher, said by phone.
The Zikim Crossing was shut on 12 September and no aid groups have been able to import supplies since, it said.
"There are grave concerns over fuel and food stock depletion in a matter of days as there are now no direct aid entry points into northern Gaza and resupply from south to north is increasingly challenging due to mounting road congestion and insecurity," the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) said in a statement.
Israel's military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Late on Tuesday it said that humanitarian aid would be allowed to enter northern Gaza, without giving details.
At least 63 people were killed by Israeli strikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, with most of the casualties in Gaza City, local health authorities said.
Germany will grant police the power to shoot down rogue drones like those that have disrupted airports across Europe and that some European leaders ha...
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev welcomed a Croatian delegation led by Gordan Jandroković, Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, ma...
A new stage of economic transformation is under way in Karakalpakstan, where authorities have announced 27 large-scale projects worth nearly $2 billio...
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Richar...
Czech Republic election winner ANO hopes to conclude negotiations with two small parties on forming a new government by the beginning of November, par...
Germany will grant police the power to shoot down rogue drones like those that have disrupted airports across Europe and that some European leaders have attributed to a hybrid war being waged by Russia.
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev welcomed a Croatian delegation led by Gordan Jandroković, Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, marking his first official visit to Azerbaijan.
A new stage of economic transformation is under way in Karakalpakstan, where authorities have announced 27 large-scale projects worth nearly $2 billion with an aim to boost growth in the region.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi of the University of California.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
Germany will grant police the power to shoot down rogue drones like those that have disrupted airports across Europe and that some European leaders have attributed to a hybrid war being waged by Russia.
Czech Republic election winner ANO hopes to conclude negotiations with two small parties on forming a new government by the beginning of November, party leader Andrej Babis said on Wednesday (8 October).
Türkiye on Wednesday slammed an intervention by Israeli forces against a flotilla attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza as an act of piracy and a violation of international law.
Caretaker French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu struck a cautiously optimistic tone on Wednesday (8 October), saying a deal could potentially be reached on the country's budget by year end, making the risk of a snap election more remote.
Four people have been confirmed dead after a six-storey building collapsed in central Madrid while being converted into a hotel, authorities said, following a 15-hour rescue effort involving drones and sniffer dogs.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment