GAZA, Sept. 1 — The Israeli army intensified its air and ground attacks on Gaza City on Sunday, aiming to force residents to flee to the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.
Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that the Abu Iskandar and Jabalia areas in the northern part of the Gaza Strip are witnessing a dangerous escalation, with Israeli forces carrying out air and artillery bombardment targeting homes and apartments.
The sources and witnesses said that Israeli warplanes bombed several residential homes in the Jabalia al-Nazla area over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, tanks randomly fired machine guns in the areas they infiltrated. Some Palestinian families are trapped and unable to leave their homes due to the intense shelling, lack of transportation, and the absence of safe places to evacuate. The attacks have also led to the disruption of basic services such as drinking water, the sources and witnesses reported.
“The Israeli army is tightening the noose around the city and its residents to force us to flee south,” Ismail Labad, a 32-year-old father of two children and a resident of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, one of the city’s largest neighborhoods, told Xinhua.
Labad said that the Israeli army wants to reach the center of the city, which is “overcrowded and is being bombed by air, land, and sea around the clock, but we will not leave because there is no empty space in the south.”
The situation is not much different in the Zeitoun and Sabrah neighborhoods in the south of the city, which have been subjected to aerial and artillery bombardment for several days, with forces slowly advancing on their outskirts.
Mervat Salem, a mother of three from the Sabra neighborhood, said, “The bombing of the neighborhood has not stopped, and every moment we witness the loss of our lives due to the intensity of the airstrikes.”
“The sound of the explosions makes the house shake as if an earthquake is hitting the area,” Salem added. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army on these incidents.
Also on Sunday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a brief statement that children in Gaza are not going to school and are being forced, once again, to seek a safe place.
“There is nowhere safe, not enough space, not even enough tents,” it continued, noting that the intense Israeli military operation in Gaza City is “pushing thousands of people into the unknown.”
Since Israel resumed its intensified military campaign on March 18, at least 11,328 Palestinians have been killed and 48,215 injured, bringing the overall death toll in Gaza since the war began in October 2023 to 63,459, with a total of 160,256 people injured, according to an update by the health authorities in Gaza on Sunday. (Xinhua)
