Israel pounds Gaza City as fears mount for those inside
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 10 hours ago
- 4 min read
By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD, RAWAN SHEIKH AHMAD, GABBY SOBELMAN and LIAM STACK
The Israeli military said it would open another evacuation route on Wednesday for people fleeing Gaza City as international alarm grew over the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still sheltering there amid Israel’s heavy bombardment and widening ground assault.
Before the expanded offensive was announced Tuesday, the military ordered people in Gaza City to go to what it described as a humanitarian zone in the south. The Israeli military said that more than 350,000 people had fled the northern city as of Tuesday evening, cramming onto the enclave’s coastal road, but roughly half a million were believed to still be there.
On Wednesday, the military announced the opening of another “temporary route” heading south along Salah al-Din Road. In an Arabic-language statement posted on social media, it said the route would be open for 48 hours, starting at noon local time Wednesday.
The start of the long-planned ground offensive drew fierce condemnation from allies of Israel and aid agencies, who said it would worsen an already dire humanitarian situation and derail any diplomatic resolution to the nearly two-year war.
Israel’s government has said seizing Gaza City is necessary to prevent Hamas from regrouping and planning future attacks like the assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the war.
Heavy airstrikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip, with Israel’s military saying on Wednesday morning that more than 150 strikes had been launched over the previous 48 hours.
Salah al-Din Road, which runs roughly north to south through the enclave, links Gaza City to the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, a journey that can take up to seven hours by foot. Israel’s military designated it an evacuation corridor earlier in the war, but a report from Human Rights Watch last year found that it was “rarely, if ever, safe” and had come under Israeli fire.
The assault on Gaza City was announced on the same day that a U.N. commission investigating the war said Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians, which Israel has denied.
Since the war began, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and most people have been displaced multiple times. Hunger is rampant in the enclave, and last month, a U.N.-backed panel of food experts found famine in Gaza City, in a report that Israel has criticized.
In a report on Wednesday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said no food aid had entered northern Gaza since Friday, when it said Israel’s military had closed an important border crossing, Zikim.
Aid groups, the report said, had “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.”
That account differed from the one offered by COGAT, the Israeli military agency that manages aid to Gaza. In a statement posted online, it said 230 aid trucks had entered Gaza through the border crossings of Kerem Shalom, in the south, and Zikim, in the north, on Tuesday.
COGAT declined to explain the discrepancy between its account and that provided by the United Nations, but said in a statement that “the entry of trucks through the Zikim crossing will be facilitated subject to operational considerations.”
It also declined to provide detailed information about how many trucks reached Gaza City on Tuesday.
The U.N. report echoed the concerns in a joint statement issued Wednesday by the leaders of 20 leading aid organizations, who demanded “urgent intervention” in Gaza.
The aid officials said that “the inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable” and listed a catalog of human suffering: death, maiming, famine, widespread destruction, “children so traumatized by daily airstrikes that they cannot sleep” and others who “want to die to join their parents in heaven.”
The lengthy statement was signed by leaders of organizations including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International and Save the Children. It said that their efforts to provide aid had been “obstructed every step of the way,” accusations that Israel has consistently rejected.
With Israel’s evacuation orders for Gaza City, they warned, “we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken.”
Nearly 100 people have been killed and nearly 400 wounded over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said Wednesday afternoon. It added that emergency workers had been unable to reach a number of people trapped under the rubble.
Arab nations joined the calls for action, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar condemning the ground offensive on Wednesday. Qatar said the Gaza City operation was a “flagrant violation of international law” that would “undermine the prospects for peace in the region.” The country has acted as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, and it was the site of an Israeli strike on Hamas officials last week.
Amid mounting outrage over the ground assault, the European Commission proposed on Wednesday to suspend favorable trade terms and impose sanctions on some Israeli ministers, measures aimed at signaling demands for an end to the war.
“The horrific events taking place in Gaza on a daily basis must stop,” the president of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement. “There needs to be an immediate ceasefire, unrestrained access for all humanitarian aid, and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.”
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, criticized the commission’s move as “morally and politically distorted.” He said in a statement that Israel hoped the measures would not be adopted, and would “continue to fight.”