Scores of Palestinians have been killed and thousands forced to flee following nearly a week of relentless Israeli bombardment. The Hamas-run municipality of Gaza City’s southern Zeitoun district described the situation as ‘catastrophic’, with residents enduring almost constant explosions from Israeli air strikes, tank shelling, and demolition operations.
Zeitoun, once home to around 50,000 people, has been left without food, water, or functioning infrastructure, following six days of strikes. At least 40 Palestinians were killed on Saturday alone, Gaza’s civil defense agency confirmed, as Israel pushed forward with its controversial plan to drive more than a million people from the city into sprawling tent camps in the south.
The UN Security Council has already condemned Israel’s vote last week to seize the city, describing the mass displacement of its residents as unlawful. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to want Gaza City under complete Israeli control from October 7 – the anniversary of Hamas’s bloody incursion that killed 1,200 people and left 251 hostages.
In an extraordinary admission, the Israeli military announced it would begin allowing aid agencies to bring in tents again – despite accusations from the UN that Tel Aviv has deliberately choked humanitarian access. ‘As part of the preparations to move the population from combat zones to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection, the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume,’ the Israeli military body COGAT said.
Humanitarian Crisis Escalates
Ghassan Kashko, 40, who is sheltering with his family at a school building in the neighborhood, told news agency AFP that air strikes and tank shelling were causing ‘explosions… that don’t stop’. ‘We don’t know the taste of sleep,’ he said.
The humanitarian picture is worsening by the day. Gaza’s four remaining hospitals are operating at less than 20 per cent of capacity, starved of medicine and supplies. The UN estimates that 1.9 million Gazans – 90 per cent of the population – have now been displaced, while aid groups warn that famine is no longer a looming threat but an unfolding reality.
On Saturday, hospitals reported another 11 deaths from malnutrition, including a child, bringing the grim toll to 251 starvation deaths – 108 of them children. With temperatures in the shattered territory soaring above 32C, the dire conditions are claiming more lives by the day.