Thousands of Palestinians flee as Israeli troops enter Gaza City

2025-09-17 13:03:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Thousands of Palestinians are continuing to flee Gaza City, a day after Israel said it had launched a major ground offensive aimed at capturing the city.

Amid large-scale overnight shelling, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said the al-Ranitisi children's hospital was targeted in three separate attacks, forcing half of the patients and their families to flee.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports. Earlier, it announced it had struck more than 150 "terrorist targets" across Gaza City in two days.

Israel says its goal is to defeat up to 3,000 Hamas fighters in what it describes as the group's "last bastion" and free its hostages.

But the offensive has received widespread international condemnation.

The heads of more than 20 aid agencies have urged world leaders to act, saying the "inhumane situation in Gaza is untenable" and calling for "urgent intervention".

For days, large columns of Palestinians have been streaming south from Gaza City in donkey carts, rickshaws, vehicles loaded with personal belongings, and on foot.

So far, they have been forced to flee along a single coastal road towards an Israeli-designated "humanitarian zone" in al-Mawasi.

But on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced they would open a second exit route, along the central Salah al-Din Road. They said the road would be open for 48 hours from 12:00 local time (10:00 BST).

Many Palestinians say they are unable to move south because of the rising costs associated with travel. Some say renting a small truck now costs around 3,000 shekels ($900; £660), while a tent for five people sells for around 4,000 shekels.

Lina al-Maghrebi, 32, a mother of three from the city's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, told the BBC: "I was forced to sell my jewelry to cover the cost of relocation and a tent."

"It took us 10 hours to get to Khan Younis and we paid 3,500 shekels for the trip. The line of cars and trucks seemed endless."

Aid groups, UN agencies and others say the "humanitarian zone" where they are expected to be relocated is vastly overcrowded and inadequate to support the roughly 2 million Palestinians expected to gather there.

Some Palestinians who followed army orders to evacuate the area say they found no space to pitch their tents and so turned north.

The IDF said Tuesday that about 350,000 people had fled Gaza City, while the UN put the figure at 190,000 since August. Estimates suggest that at least 650,000 people remain.

As part of its operations, the IDF is reportedly using old military vehicles loaded with explosives that have been modified to be remotely controlled.

They are being sent towards Hamas positions and are exploding, according to Israeli media.

Meanwhile, families of the 48 remaining hostages held by Hamas - 20 of whom are believed to be alive - protested near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday and Wednesday, arguing that the offensive would endanger their loved ones.

"You brag all day about killing and destruction," said Macabit Mayer, the aunt of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman. "The destruction of buildings in Gaza - who are you knocking down these buildings for?"

"Could it be possible that you are tearing down these buildings now in Gali and Ziv and all the souls left there - the living and the dead?"

The offensive has received widespread international condemnation, with UN human rights chief Volker Türk describing it as "totally unacceptable" and UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper calling it "utterly reckless and appalling".

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to offer tacit support for Israel's operation during a joint press conference with Netanyahu on Monday.

He said the US preferred a negotiated end to the war, but that "sometimes when you're dealing with a vicious group like Hamas, that's not possible."

This came after a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Among its findings were that Israeli security forces committed sexual and gender-based violence, directly targeted children with the intention of killing them, and carried out a "systematic and widespread attack" on religious, cultural and educational sites in Gaza.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as "distorted and false."

Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 64,964 people have been killed by Israel during its campaign since then, almost half of them women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry.

With famine already declared in Gaza City by a UN-backed food security body, the UN has warned that an intensification of the offensive will push civilians into an "even deeper catastrophe."/ CNA