Gaza City is witnessing yet another man-made humanitarian catastrophe, with tens of thousands of civilians forcibly displaced, rising death and injury tolls, and levels of devastation reaching alarming proportions. This comes amid the ongoing policy of comprehensive destruction that the Israeli occupation has been implementing through escalating military operations for weeks.
The Civil Defence in Gaza confirmed that more than 6,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes after intense bombing left entire neighbourhoods without shelter. This mass displacement adds to the plight of over two million people in Gaza who are already living under siege, hunger, and relentless bombardment.
Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal explained that the airstrikes did not only target homes whose residents had been warned beforehand but also struck buildings without any notice, causing multiple deaths and injuries, including children and women.
Basal stressed that living conditions in Gaza City have reached a catastrophic stage. Families now lack the bare essentials of life, while thousands of children face imminent death due to hunger and collapsing health systems.
The occupation also continued its concentrated bombardment, targeting residential towers and schools in the city centre under “Operation Arora,” which aims at full control of the city. According to official statistics, since 11 August, the occupation has completely destroyed 1,600 residential towers and buildings, severely damaged nearly 2,000 others, and burned or destroyed 13,000 tents. This devastation has displaced more than 100,000 people.
Population movement inside the city now resembles mass internal displacement, with the majority crammed into overcrowded neighbourhoods. Many fled the western districts under heavy bombardment, only to be struck again in their supposed places of refuge.
According to humanitarian assessments, what is happening in Gaza amounts to “a death sentence” for its residents, leaving them with no options but to die under the rubble or flee into densely packed areas where survival is impossible.
Despite growing internal protests within Israel over the impact of these operations on captives’ lives in Gaza, the army continues to implement its offensive under “Operation Iron Swords 2,” with the declared aim of fully subjugating the Strip.
Since 7 October 2023, the genocidal war has killed more than 64,803 Palestinians and injured 162,367 others, most of them women and children. At least 9,000 remain missing, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced. The famine alone has killed 420 people, including 145 children, underscoring that what is unfolding is not merely a military campaign but a full-fledged crime of genocide against civilians.
