Thousands of Palestinians flee Gaza City as Israeli troops advance

Thousands of Palestinians are continuing to flee Gaza City, as Israel’s major ground offensive aimed at occupying the area enters a second day.

Israel says its aim is to free hostages held by Hamas and defeat up to 3,000 fighters in what it describes as the group’s “last stronghold”, but the offensive has drawn widespread international condemnation.

The leaders of more than 20 major aid agencies, including Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “the inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable”.

It comes a day after a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza – an allegation the Israeli government strongly denied.

Amid large-scale Israeli bombardment, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said al-Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza City was targeted in three separate Israeli attacks on Tuesday night, prompting around half its patients to leave.

A source at the hospital said there were no injuries but that air conditioning units, water tanks and solar panels were severely damaged.

“This hospital is the only specialist facility for children with cancer, kidney failure, and other life-threatening conditions,” said Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was looking into the reports.

The IDF announced on Wednesday morning that it had struck more than 150 targets across Gaza City in two days in support of its ground troops.

As part of its operations, the IDF is also reportedly utilising old military vehicles loaded with explosives that have been modified to be controlled remotely. They are being driven to Hamas positions and detonated, according to Israeli media.

Resident Nidal al-Sherbi told the BBC Arabic’s Middle East Daily programme: “Last night was extremely difficult, with continuous explosions and shelling that lasted from night until dawn.”

“Israeli vehicles advanced from Sheikh Radwan, Tal al-Hawa, and also from Shejaiya. It was a very, very frightening night.”

For days – as Israel has ramped up strikes in and around the city – huge columns of Palestinians have streamed southwards in donkey carts, rickshaws, vehicles strapped high with belongings, and on foot.

Until now, they have been forced to flee down the main coastal road to an Israel-designated “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi.

But on Wednesday, the IDF announced that it would temporarily open a second route for people to travel on – the central Salah al-Din road. It said the route would be open for 48 hours from 12:00 local time (10:00 BST).

Many Palestinians say they are unable to move south due to the rising costs associated with the journey. Some say renting a small truck now costs the equivalent of £660 ($900), while a tent for five people sells for about £880 ($1,200).

Aid groups, UN agencies and others say the “humanitarian area” they are expected to move to is heavily overcrowded and insufficient to support the roughly two million Palestinians who are expected to cram into it.

Some who followed the military’s orders to evacuate to the zone say they found no space to pitch their tents and so returned north.

“Everyday leaflets are thrown at us ordering evacuation, while the Israeli army shells buildings in every direction,” Munir Azzam, who is in northern Gaza, told the BBC. “But where can we go? We have no refuge in the South.”

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

Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday that 98 people had been killed and 385 injured by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours. Another four people had died from malnutrition, taking the total number of malnutrition-related deaths since a UN-backed body declared famine in Gaza City in late August to 154, it added.

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.

“All day long, you boast about killing and destruction,” said Macabit Mayer, aunt of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman. “Bringing down buildings in Gaza – who are you bringing these buildings down on?”

Pope Leo XIV meanwhile said conditions for Palestinians in Gaza were “unacceptable” and repeated his call for a ceasefire.

“I am deeply close to the Palestinian people of Gaza, who continue to live in fear and under unacceptable conditions, forced yet again to leave their land,” he told his weekly audience at the Vatican.

Elsewhere, the European Union’s main executive body, the European Commission, proposed imposing sanctions on Israel over its conduct during the Gaza war and its decision to advance the E1 settlement project, which would effectively divide the occupied West Bank in two.

The proposal includes suspending some trade-related provisions of the EU’s association agreement with Israel, as well as sanctions on “extremist ministers” in the Israeli government and violent Israeli settlers. The settlements are illegal under international law.

Israel has warned the EU not to impose the measures, which do not currently have sufficient support from member states to pass.

Among the findings of the UN commission of inquiry’s report which concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza was that Israeli security forces had perpetrated sexual and gender-based violence, directly targeted children with the intention to kill them, and carried out a “systemic and widespread attack” on religious, cultural and education sites.

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 the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 65,062 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, almost half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

With famine having already been 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 “even deeper catastrophe”.

Additional reporting by Rushdi Abualouf