GAZA CITY, Sept 16 – Israel has launched its long-planned major ground offensive on Gaza City, conducting heavy air strikes overnight as troops pushed into the edges of the city.
Thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee down a single coastal road to the centre of the Strip, joining hundreds of thousands who have already fled.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a “powerful operation” had been launched against Hamas’s “last major stronghold” amid sharp criticism from the UK and other countries.
The offensive comes as a UN commission of inquiry found that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Huge columns of Palestinians were seen streaming towards the south in donkey carts, rickshaws, vehicles strapped high with belongings, and on foot.
Large parts of Gaza City were already destroyed in the first stages of the war in 2023, though around a million Palestinians had returned to their homes since then – often among rubble and bombed-out buildings.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) estimates 350,000 people have now fled, though more than half a million remain in the city. All are being asked to flee south to a “humanitarian zone” in a coastal part of the Strip.
Many Palestinians say they cannot afford to go south, while others say southern and central Gaza are not safe as Israel has carried out air strikes there too. Some say they have attempted to go south but found no space to pitch their tents, so returned
