ISRAEL is pounding Gaza City with some of the heaviest strikes in two years of war in its bid to force residents to make a perilous and costly journey towards the overcrowded south.
Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, warned Gaza City’s beleaguered population on Friday that it would be deploying “unprecedented force”, telling them to “take this opportunity and join the hundreds of thousands” moving south on al-Rashid coastal road – now the only permitted escape route.
The Israeli military has said about 480,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City since late August, while Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Friday that some 450,000 have been displaced towards the south.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum related “distressing” reports from Gaza City on Friday, with people forced west towards the coastal road unable to rest under the relentless pace of attacks aimed at levelling buildings and infrastructure.
“This current military operation is completely destroying entire blocks, and there are still families who are trapped under the debris of the targeted houses, particularly in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood,” said Abu Azzoum, reporting from Nuseirat in central Gaza.
While a growing number of Palestinians may now want to leave, despite their earlier resistance, many are unable to afford the cost of renting a vehicle to take household items and furniture to the overcrowded al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza.
Still, Abu Azzoum said hundreds have embarked on the long journey, many on foot, to al-Mawasi, which has itself come under Israeli attack in the past despite being designated a “safe zone”.
Nivin Ahmed, 50, fled south from Gaza City to the central city of Deir el-Balah on Thursday, walking with seven family members.
Going on United Nations estimates of some one million people living in Gaza City as of the end of August, around half the population may already have fled.
However, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said this week that approximately 740,000 people were still in the north of the enclave as of Tuesday.
Osama Awad, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza City, said people there have experienced “nights of horror” for a week straight due to Israel’s assault.
“The shelling and the bombing is getting closer. Shelling and F-16 planes are striking here and there, hitting houses, near the beach, and [Israeli military] ships in the sea are hitting from all directions,” he told Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces killed 43 people across the Strip on Friday, including 26 people in Gaza City alone, according to medical sources.
Three civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a residential house in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa, close to the Netzarim Corridor, sources told Al Jazeera.
Friday’s death toll also includes two aid seekers who were killed by the Israeli army in southern Gaza.