By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY, and MELANIE LIDMAN, Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military urged a full evacuation of Gaza City on Tuesday morning ahead of its planned expanded offensive in the northern city, where hundreds of thousands of people struggle under conditions of famine.
The announcement was the first warning for a full evacuation of the city in the current round of fighting. Previously, the military has warned specific sections of Gaza City to evacuate ahead of concentrated operations or strikes.
Associated Press reporters saw more cars and trucks than previous days passing from northern to southern Gaza on Tuesday, laden with supplies and people, but no widespread evacuation.
Israel says multiple towers destroyed in Gaza City
Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said Israel had demolished 30 high-rise buildings in Gaza, which it accused Hamas of using for military infrastructure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel destroyed at least 50 “terror towers” that he said are used by Hamas. It was unclear if the towers Katz referred to are in addition to those announced by Netanyahu, who called the demolition of the high-rises “only the introduction, only the beginning of the main intensive operation — the ground incursion of our forces.”
The demolitions are part of Israel ramping up its offensive to take control of what it portrays as Hamas’ last remaining stronghold, urging Palestinians to flee parts of Gaza City for a designated humanitarian zone in the territory’s south.
Despite warnings, few Palestinians have left
Tuesday’s warnings were the most widespread evacuation warnings in the current round of fighting, though Israel’s previous warnings to leave specific neighborhoods have had little impact on a population that is exhausted from multiple displacements and unclear if moving to southern Gaza will really be safer.
There are an estimated 1 million Palestinians in the area of north Gaza around Gaza City, according to both the Israeli military and the United Nations, around half of Gaza’s population of 2.1 million. As of Sept. 7, a coalition of humanitarian groups tracking movement in northern Gaza said they had tracked 50,000 movements of people fleeing south. A similar number were people moved within northern Gaza.
The data from the coalition, called the Site Management Cluster, tracks movement from eyewitness accounts, social media posts and information from partners on the ground, because access to northern Gaza is restricted.
Military spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee warned last week that the evacuation of Gaza City was “inevitable,” saying families who move south would receive humanitarian assistance. But aid groups warned there was little infrastructure to support them.
Palestinians and hostage survivors protest Israeli operation
Dozens of Palestinians, including doctors and medical staff, took part in a protest in Gaza City on Tuesday that rejected the Israeli warnings.
“We will never leave our land … health care workers won’t leave and we are calling for protection,” said Dr. Muneer al-Boursh, the general director of Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Dr. Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa Hospital, said although the situation in Gaza City was tense, the facility still operates and receives patients.
“So far, things are as usual,” he told The Associated Press, two hours after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of Gaza City. “But the atmosphere is tense and there is great psychological pressure on the staff and patients.”
He said he didn’t notice displacement in and around the hospital.
In Jerusalem, families of hostages and former captives in Gaza pleaded with Israeli lawmakers to halt the Gaza City offensive.
“I was held captive by Hamas for 498 days and was released in a deal in February,” Iair Horn, whose brother, Eitan, is still in captivity, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “If I was released through a deal, then apparently that’s the right way to free the rest of the hostages who remain.”
UN says families can’t afford to move
The United Nations humanitarian agency said many families can’t evacuate even if they want to, because displacement sites are overcrowded and because it can cost more than $1,000 to move to southern Gaza, a prohibitive cost for many.
A U.N. initiative to bring temporary shelters into Gaza said that more than 86,000 tents and other supplies were still awaiting clearance to enter Gaza as of last week.
The U.N. agency that oversees Palestinian refugees said Tuesday said that Israeli attacks on residential towers in Gaza City had displaced dozens of families, with many of them having been left “on the streets without shelter or basic necessities.”
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid to Gaza said 1,500 humanitarian aid trucks primarily containing food entered Gaza last week, and there are plans to bring in 100,000 tents in the coming weeks, many of which are currently waiting in Jordan. The tents needed to be adapted to swap metal poles, which COGAT said were repurposed into rockets used by militants, with plastic poles.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas abducted 251 people on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed some 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians. Forty-eight hostages are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,522 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children. Large parts of major cities have been completely destroyed and around 90% of the population of some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced.
2 Palestinian teenagers killed in the West Bank
Two 14-year-old Palestinian boys were killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the incident happened in the northern West Bank City of Jenin, where several people approached Israeli soldiers in a way that “posed a threat.” The area was under military closure and entry was prohibited at the time, the military said, without providing further information.
Also in the West Bank, an Israeli investigation continued into two Palestinians who opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem on Monday, killing six people. It was the deadliest attack against civilians in Israel in nearly a year.
Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Tuesday he placed sanctions on the relatives and residents of the towns where the two attackers are from, will order all buildings constructed without permits to be demolished, and canceled 750 work visas for town residents.
Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.