The Israeli Army dropped thousands of leaflets over Gaza City on July 10 urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive that has rocked the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory.

The leaflets, addressed to “everyone in Gaza City”, set out designated escape routes to the south and warned that the urban area, previously home to more than half a million people, would “remain a dangerous combat zone”.

The warning follows three partial evacuation orders and came as Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, have fought Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the heaviest combat operations the city has seen in months.

In one operation, the Army said it had killed militants and found weapons inside the long-vacated Gaza City headquarters of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Elsewhere across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools used as shelters in four days, sparking international outrage.

The upsurge in fighting and displacement came as mediator Qatar was due to resume talks on Wednesday toward a truce and hostage release deal to end the war, now grinding on into its 10th month.

An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha for the talks, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity.

CIA director William Burns was also expected in the Qatari capital, after holding talks in Cairo on Tuesday.

The latest fighting in Gaza has newly displaced 3,50,000 civilians, said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, who spoke before the latest leaflet drop and said “there is absolutely no safe space in Gaza”.

One woman carrying her scant belongings through the bombed-out wasteland, Nimr al-Jamal, told AFP on Tuesday that “this is the 12th time” her family has had to flee.

“How many times can we endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?”

Hamas, whose October 7 attack started the war, has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of escalating the fighting to derail the latest ceasefire talks.

Also Read | Israel’s new strikes in Gaza City threaten truce talks: Hamas

The Islamist group’s armed wing said this week the resurgent battles in Gaza City were “the most intense in months”, while deadly strikes have also hit elsewhere across the territory.

Israel’s military said it had “eliminated” Palestinian militants operating from inside the city’s UNRWA headquarters and found “large amounts of weapons” inside.

The U.N. agency’s head of communications Juliette Touma told AFP it was hard to know if people were sheltering in the building “as we don’t have regular access to Gaza City”.

‘Death and misery’

The Israeli Army said it was reviewing an attack on Tuesday in which hospital sources said at least 29 people were killed in a school used as a shelter in the southern Khan Younis area.

Germany said the strike was “unacceptable” and called for a rapid investigation into the incident.

“Civilians, especially children, must not get caught in the crossfire,” the Foreign Ministry posted on X. “The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and an investigation must come quickly.”

Gaza’s Hamas government said a “majority” of the dead were women and children.

AFP footage showed the wounded being rushed to the nearby Nasser hospital, many screaming in pain, as relatives wailed in grief for the dead.

One wounded man, Osama Abu Daqqa, recounted that “suddenly the strike hit, people were injured and martyred and there was no one to help them”.

Also Read | Airstrike kills 25 in southern Gaza as Israeli assault on Gaza City shuts down medical facilities

Another survivor, Mohamed Sukkar, said that “without any warning, rockets were fired at a group of people who were browsing the internet. They were not part of the resistance nor were they armed, they were all civilians.”

The military said that the strike had killed a Hamas “terrorist” who had taken part in the October 7 attack and that it was “looking into the reports that civilians were harmed, adjacent to the Al Awda school”, which it acknowledged was “near the location of the strike”.

“The incident is under review.”

Three previous Israeli strikes since Saturday on Gaza schools used by displaced Palestinians have killed a total of at least 20 people, according to Gaza officials and rescue services.

Mr. Lazzarini wrote on social media site X that “schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery”.

‘She is alone’

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,295 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Israel has also imposed a punishing siege on Gaza’s 2.4 million people, eased only by sporadic aid deliveries.

Independent U.N. rights experts on Tuesday accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that constituted “a form of genocidal violence”.

Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva accused the panel’s members of “spreading misinformation” and “supporting Hamas propaganda”.

Elad Goren of Israel’s COGAT, the military department handling aid to Gaza, said an average of 250 trucks were entering through the Kerem Shalom crossing, half of the daily capacity — a shortfall he blamed on problems on the Palestinian side.

In Israel, meanwhile, protesters have regularly taken to the streets to demand the Netanyahu government strike a deal to bring home the hostages.

Some of the captives’ relatives spoke about their fear, especially of the risk of female captives being abused, at a virtual press conference by the Hostages Families Forum.

“My life stopped on the 7th of October,” said Simona Steinbrecher, mother of the hostage Doron Steinbrecher. “I know she is alone there and I cannot help her.”

Jerusalem:

Israel’s top army spokesman said Wednesday that Hamas cannot be eliminated, prompting a knee-jerk reaction from the government which quickly reiterated it remains committed to the Palestinian militant group’s destruction.

More than eight months of war, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, have failed to oust the Islamist militants from Gaza but have brought widespread devastation.

“To say that we are going to make Hamas disappear is to throw sand in people’s eyes. If we don’t provide an alternative, in the end, we will have Hamas,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Israel’s Channel 13 broadcaster.

“Hamas is an ideology, we cannot eliminate an ideology.”

His comments were quickly rebuffed by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose cabinet has stated its Gaza offensive will not end until Hamas is defeated.

“The political and security cabinet headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu defined as one of the goals of the war the destruction of Hamas’ military and governmental capabilities,” his office said in a statement.

“The IDF is of course committed to this.”

In a separate statement on its Telegram channel, the military clarified that Hagari had addressed Hamas “as an ideology… and his statements were clear and explicit”.

“Any other claim is taking the statement out of context.”

The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages. Of these, 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive aimed at eliminating Hamas has killed at least 37,396 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized plans announced by the military on Sunday to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate aid delivery into the Palestinian enclave.

The military had announced the daily pauses from 0500 GMT until 1600 GMT in the area from the Kerem Shalom Crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards.

“When the prime minister heard the reports of an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he turned to his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him,” an Israeli official said.

The military clarified that normal operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its operation in southern Gaza, where eight soldiers were killed on Saturday.

The reaction from Netanyahu underlined political tensions over the issue of aid coming into Gaza, where international organisations have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads one of the nationalist religious parties in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, denounced the idea of a tactical pause, saying whoever decided it was a “fool” who should lose their job.

Divisions Between Coalition, Army

The spat was the latest in a series of clashes between members of the coalition and the military over the conduct of the war, now in its ninth month.

It came a week after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government, accusing Netanyahu of having no effective strategy in Gaza.

The divisions were laid bare last week in a parliamentary vote on a law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant voting against it in defiance of party orders, saying it was insufficient for the needs of the military.

Religious parties in the coalition have strongly opposed conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, drawing widespread anger from many Israelis, which has deepened as the war has gone on.

Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the head of the military, said on Sunday there was a “definite need” to recruit more soldiers from the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community.

Reservists Under Strain

Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still appears distant, more than eight months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters on Israel triggered a ground assault on the enclave by Israeli forces.

Since the attack, which killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners in Israeli communities, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and destroyed much of Gaza.

Although opinion polls suggest most Israelis support the government’s aim of destroying Hamas, there have been widespread protests attacking the government for not doing more to bring home around 120 hostages who are still in Gaza after being taken hostage on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said seven Palestinians were killed in two air strikes on two houses in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

As fighting in Gaza has continued, a lower level conflict across the Israel-Lebanon border is now threatening to spiral into a wider war as near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have escalated.

In a further sign that fighting in Gaza could drag on, Netanyahu’s government said on Sunday it was extending until Aug. 15 the period it would fund hotels and guest houses for residents evacuated from southern Israeli border towns.

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The Israeli army said Saturday that troops had retrieved the body of hostage Ron Benjamin from the war-torn Gaza Strip after he was “murdered” during the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Benjamin’s body was recovered in the same operation that saw troops retrieve the remains of three other hostages, which was announced on Friday.

Benjamin was “murdered during the October 7th massacre at the Mefalsim intersection, and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas militants,” the military said in a separate statement.

“His body was rescued along with the bodies of Yitzhak Gelerenter, Shani Louk, and Amit Buskila … based on precise intelligence obtained during the interrogations of terrorists who were apprehended in the Gaza Strip.”

The military said on Friday troops had recovered the bodies of Louk, Buskila and Gelerenter from Gaza after they were taken hostage during the attack on the Nova music festival.

Thousands of young people had gathered on October 6 and 7 to dance to electronic music at the event, which was held near Re’im kibbutz close to the Gaza border.

Fighters from Hamas crossed over from Gaza and killed more than 360 people at the festival, Israeli officials have said.

The Nova festival victims accounted for nearly a third of the more than 1,170 people killed in the October 7 attack, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Out of the 252 people taken hostage that day, 124 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 37 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 35,386 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

On Saturday, campaign group The Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on the Israeli authorities to strike a deal with Hamas to bring back the remaining hostages held in Gaza.

“Those alive should be returned for rehabilitation, and those murdered should be brought back for a dignified burial, as was made possible for Ron Benjamin this evening,” the group said in a statement.
 

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Israel pulled its ground forces out of the southern Gaza Strip Sunday, media reports said, in a partial withdrawal six months into the devastating war sparked by the October 7 attacks.

But the military said a “significant force” will keep operating elsewhere in the besieged Palestinian territory, able “to conduct precise intelligence based operations”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was just “one step away from victory” and vowed there would be no let-up in fighting until Hamas releases all hostages.

Speaking as new truce talks were due to be held in Cairo, he told his cabinet that “there will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages. It just won’t happen.”

Netanyahu stressed that “Israel is ready for a deal, Israel is not ready to surrender”.

Air strikes kept pounding Khan Yunis and Rafah during the night, eyewitnesses said.

The army said it withdrew its forces from southern Gaza after months of fighting there left in ruins the city of Khan Yunis, hometown of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

“The 98th commando division has concluded its mission in Khan Yunis,” the army told AFP. “The division left the Gaza Strip in order to recuperate and prepare for future operations.”

An army official told the Haaretz daily that the troops pulled out after they had “dismantled Hamas’s Khan Yunis brigades and killed thousands of its members.

“We did everything we could there.”

The news of the partial withdrawal came on the day talks towards a truce and hostage release deal were expected to resume in Cairo, including US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

CIA chief Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani will join Egyptian officials for indirect talks from Sunday between the Israeli and Hamas delegations, Egypt’s Al-Qahera News said.

Netanyahu had long threatened a ground offensive on far-southern Gaza’s Rafah city, sparking global concern, including from Israel’s top ally the United States.

Up to 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded into the area on the Egyptian border, many living in tents. Dozens left Rafah by foot, in cars and on donkey carts and returned to Khan Yunis on Sunday after the Israeli pullout, AFP images showed.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden — angered by an Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers of a US-based food charity — told Netanyahu he wants to see a ceasefire and hostage release deal and ramped-up aid deliveries.

Biden — whose government is Israel’s top arms supplier and political backer — also hinted at making US support for Israel conditional on curtailing the killing of civilians and improving humanitarian conditions.

‘Bodies under the rubble’

Several aid trucks on Sunday entered southern Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the drivers honking their horns as crowds ran after them, AFP TV footage showed.

Israel has faced a storm of international outrage over the killing of seven aid workers of the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen in a Gaza air strike on April 1.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also demanded that “this terrible conflict must end”.

A Palestinian father-of-six in northern Gaza, Muhammad Yunis, 51, told AFP the territory’s 2.4 million people desperately need a reprieve from the bombardment and suffering.

“It’s been half a year and the bombing and starvation continue,” said the man from Beit Lahia, now a broken landscape of shattered buildings.

“Watching the thin bodies of our children takes away our souls … I feel helpless and humiliated,” he said.

“Isn’t the bombing, death and destruction enough? There are bodies still under the rubble. We can smell the stench.”

UNICEF chief Catherine Russell pointed out that more than 13,000 children were reportedly among those killed.

“Homes, schools and hospitals in ruin. Teachers, doctors and humanitarians killed. Famine is imminent,” she said on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday.

“The level and speed of destruction are shocking. Children need a ceasefire NOW.”

Hospital an ’empty shell’

The Gaza war broke out on October 7 with an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants also took more than 250 hostages, and 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Vast areas of Gaza have been turned into a rubble-strewn wasteland, its people trapped in a dire humanitarian crisis amid an Israeli siege.

Gaza has received only sporadic aid via a road crossing with Egypt, airdrops and two sea shipments — and aid agencies warn the deliveries fall far short of the dire needs.

Under US pressure, Israel has pledged to allow for the first time aid deliveries through its Erez border crossing with northern Gaza.

Most of Gaza’s hospitals are out of action and the largest, Al-Shifa, is “now an empty shell with human graves”, said World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Mass protests

Netanyahu has meanwhile come under intense pressure at home from families and supporters of hostages, and from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.

Ten of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv and other cities Saturday, demanding “elections now”.

Among the protesters was Israel’s centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, who was later headed to Washington, his Yesh Atid party said.

Lapid was expected to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fierce critic of Netanyahu.

Fears that the war could spread have intensified after Iran vowed retaliation for the killing of seven Revolutionary Guards in an air strike last Monday on the consular annex of its embassy in Damascus.

Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency that “the embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe”.

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The Hamas-run government in Gaza said Israeli fire killed 19 people as they were waiting at an aid distribution point on Saturday, a charge Israel denied.

The deaths if confirmed would be the latest in a series of cases of Gazan civilians being killed while seeking desperately needed relief supplies.

The Hamas government media office said 19 people were killed and 23 wounded. The health ministry said “they were waiting for aid trucks at the Kuwait roundabout” when they were hit by “Israeli occupation army tank fire and shells”.

The Israeli army denied it had fired on the crowd.

“The reports claiming that the (Israeli military) attacked dozens of Gazans at an aid convoy are incorrect,” an army statement said.

“Preliminary findings have determined that there was no aerial strike against the convoy, nor were there incidents found of (Israeli) forces firing at the people at the aid convoy.”

AFPTV footage showed bloodied Gazans arriving at the crowded compound of Al-Ahli hospital, at least one of them transported by donkey cart.

Gaza City resident Wael al-Mamlouk appealed to Arab governments to intervene to prevent what he described as Israeli abuses.

“Where are the Arabs? Where is the Arab nation? Enough with this injustice,” he said.

Latest aid distribution tragedy

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the civil defence department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” and victims had been transported to a nearby hospital.

“There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult and challenging,” he said.

Half of Gazans are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, with famine projected to hit the north of the territory by May unless there is urgent intervention, a United Nations-backed food assessment warned Monday.

With aid agencies reporting huge difficulties gaining access to Gaza, particularly the north, the UN has warned for weeks that a famine is looming.

But aid distribution has become increasingly dangerous and sometimes lethal.

On March 15, Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli fire killed 20 people and wounded 155 waiting to receive aid, also at Kuwait roundabout, an account that Israel rejected as “erroneous”.

The Israeli military said “armed Palestinians” had opened fire as Gazans awaited the arrival of aid trucks, then “continued to shoot as the crowd of Gazans began looting the trucks”.

On February 29, also in north Gaza, the health ministry said more than 100 Gazans were killed when Israeli troops opened fire on people scrambling for food from a convoy.

The Israeli army said its initial investigation found troops “fired precisely” at suspects who approached them and posed a threat.

Just over a month earlier, in late January, the health ministry said Israeli forces killed 20 people waiting for humanitarian aid to be distributed, again at the Kuwait roundabout.

The Israeli military said at the time it was looking into the reported deaths.
 

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Jerusalem:

The Israeli military said Sunday it had confirmed 155 people were being held hostage by Hamas since the Palestinian group staged its deadly attack last week.

Families of “155 hostages” have been contacted by the authorities, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, updating an earlier figure confirming 126 hostages.

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Tel Aviv:

In a record mobilisation of troops, Israel mobilised 3,00,000 troops in the last 48 hours, as Israeli retaliation against the deadly Hamas attack entered its third day on Monday.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari informed about the mobilisation and said the IDF “has never mobilized so many reservists so quickly — 300,000 reservists in 48 hours.”

This is the largest mobilization since the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Israel called up 400,000 reservists, Times of Israel reported.

Hagari said that the army has evacuated 15 out of 24 towns on the border, and will continue to evacuate the others over the course of Monday, but that the town of Sderot will not be evacuated at this stage.

He also added that around 4,400 rockets have been launched toward Israel since the fighting started on Saturday morning.

Hagari said that in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council three terrorists were killed by troops; in Be’eri one was killed; in Holit and Sufa five were killed; and in Alumim four were killed, Times of Israel reported.

“It is possible there are still terrorists in the area,” Hagari said, but said that there was no ongoing fighting in any of the towns.

Some of the terrorists have been in Israel since the preliminary attack on Saturday, while others crossed the border over the past two days. Hagari said that breaches of the Gaza border barrier will be physically secured by tanks supported by combat helicopters and drones.

In another development, the Israeli military has also deployed troops against a suspected infiltration from Lebanon.

“A report was received regarding the infiltration of a number of suspects into Israeli territory from Lebanese territory. IDF soldiers are deployed in the area,” Reuters quoted the Israeli military as saying.

The IDF Homefront Command has also instructed Israeli civilians in towns near the Lebanese border to remain in their homes, IDF posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Meanwhile, the IDF continued to carry out airstrikes, with the military saying it was hitting targets belonging to the Hamas terror group.

A large wave of strikes was carried out overnight as part of its effort to “devastate the capabilities of the Hamas terror group,” two days after the terror group unleashed carnage on an unprecedented scale in Israel, killing at least 700 civilians and security personnel in the deadliest single day in the nation’s history, Times of Israel reported.

In a major escalation on October 7, Hamas launched a “surprise attack” on Israel, firing a barrage of rockets into the southern and central parts of the country

According to the latest updates, over 800 people have been killed and over 2400 are injured, with many in severe condition.

In a major development on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip. He made the statement after an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said.

“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he added.

According to Israeli local media cited by The Times of Israel, more than 700 Israelis have died since Saturday’s attack. According to Israeli government, over 2000 people have been injured in the attack.

The Government Press Office, a body that operates under the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said that the number of hostages in Gaza was more than 100.

The Israel Defense Forces’ top spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that Israeli troops have regained control of all towns on the Gaza border. He said that the incidents of clashes between troops and terrorists in the past few hours have been “isolated,” The Times of Israel reported.

Hagari said that three terrorists were killed by troops in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council. According to him, one was killed in Be’eri, five were killed in Holit and Sufa and four were killed in Alumim. Hagari said that currently, there is no fighting in any of the towns.

Hagari said, “It is possible there are still terrorists in the area.” He said breaches of the Gaza border barrier will be physically secured by tanks, which will be supported by combat helicopters and drones, The Times of Israel reported.

According to him, the Israeli army has evacuated 15 out of 24 towns on the border and will continue to evacuate the others in the coming day. He said Sderot will not be evacuated at this stage. He said some 4,400 rockets have been launched toward Israel since the fighting started on Saturday morning.

The IDF said that it is carrying out a fresh wave of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. The IDF said it is hitting targets that belong to Hamas terror group. According to the military, further details will be provided soon, according to The Times of Israel report.

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