Israeli tanks were seen in two Gaza City areas that are gateways to the city centre, residents said on Thursday, while internet and phone lines were cut off across the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to escalate imminently.
Israeli forces control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and in recent days have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western areas where most of the population is sheltering.
“The disconnection of internet and phone services is a bad omen. It has always been a bad signal something very brutal is going to happen,” said Ismail, who only gave one name. He was using an e-SIM to connect his phone, a dangerous method as it requires seeking higher ground to receive a signal.
At least 85 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes or gunfire across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, most in Gaza City, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The Israeli military said four of its personnel had been killed during combat in southern Gaza.
In separate developments, Israel attacked Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon, while two Israelis were killed at Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan, in what the Israeli military called a “terror attack.”
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move with their belongings to the south on Thursday after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate. (Mahmoud Issa/Reuters)
Israeli army spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said troops had been operating in the city’s periphery for several weeks, but since the night of Monday to Tuesday, large numbers of troops had begun moving toward the inner city.
He said a combination of infantry, tanks and artillery was advancing, backed up by the air force, and that it was a gradual process that would increase as time went on.
A total of 48 hostages captured during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, remain in Gaza and Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive.
Hostage families have been imploring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the offensive on Gaza and instead negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas to free their loved ones, but Netanyahu says military victory will bring them home.
The armed wing of Hamas said on Thursday the hostages were distributed throughout the neighbourhoods of Gaza City.
“The start of this criminal operation and its expansion means you will not receive any captive, alive or dead,” it said in a written statement.
Main network routes targeted
The Palestinian Telecommunications Company said in a statement that its services had been cut off “due to the ongoing aggression and the targeting of the main network routes.”
In its latest statement to media, it said troops were expanding their operations in Gaza City, dismantling what it called “terror infrastructure” and “eliminating terrorists,” and continuing to operate in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south.
Israel says it wants to smash the Palestinian militant group Hamas in its strongholds and free the last hostages still being held in Gaza, but its latest major offensive after two years of devastating war has drawn international condemnation.
A displaced Palestinian man, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, rests on a roadside Thursday as he waits to continue heading south after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south. Thousands of tents have been wrecked in the Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, leaving Palestinians without shelter. (Mahmoud Issa/Reuters)
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel announced on Aug. 10 it intended to take control, but a greater number are staying put, either in battered homes among the ruins or in makeshift tent encampments.
Bassam Al-Qanou, a displaced man sheltering with around 30 family members in a ragged improvised tent camp on the beach, said they had no way to get out, and nowhere to go.
“We are scared, but what can we do?” he said, adding that the children couldn’t sleep because of fear and the incessant boom of missile strikes from sea, air and ground.
Trump, Starmer asked about Gaza
U.S. President Donald Trump said he disagreed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over recognizing a Palestinian state, speaking following a bilateral meeting on Thursday during his state visit.
Asked at a news conference about recognizing a Palestinian state, Trump said: “I have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score, one of our few disagreements, actually.”
Starmer said he and Trump agreed on the ultimate aim of peace in the region, adding that the pair agree on “the need for peace and a road map, because the situation in Gaza is intolerable.”
The U.K. is among several Western countries that have indicated they are preparing to recognize Palestinian statehood during the United Nations meeting in New York next week. It comes on the heels of a UN Commission of Inquiry in Geneva concluding earlier this week that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
WATCH | UN inquiry finds Israel has committed genocide in Gaza: 
‘We have no intention to leave again,’ Gaza City resident says
Thousands of Palestinians streamed out of Gaza City as Israel launched its ground offensive on Tuesday, but hundreds of thousands remain in the city that is already in ruins from nearly two years of war. Several residents, some of whom had previously fled south but have since returned, tell CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife why they are staying.
The military has been dropping leaflets urging residents to flee toward a designated “humanitarian zone” in the south of the territory, but conditions there are dire, with insufficient food, medicine and space and inadequate shelter.
Four more Palestinians, including a child, have died of malnutrition and starvation in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, raising deaths from such causes to at least 435 people, including 147 children, since the war started.
Israel says the extent of hunger in Gaza has been exaggerated and blames Hamas for the continuation of the war, saying it could end it now if it surrendered, freed the hostages, disarmed and disbanded. Hamas says it won’t disarm until a Palestinian state is established.
Shoshani, the Israeli army spokesperson, said the situation on the ground was not easy but Israel was taking measures to limit civilian casualties and allow humanitarian assistance. He accused Hamas of dissuading people from leaving the combat zone for the humanitarian zone because the group was using civilians as human shields.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run government media office said Shoshani’s allegations were misleading because Israel’s claim that there were safe areas in the south was false.
The media office said earlier that 44 per cent of the 3,542 people killed by Israel across the territory since Aug.11, when it launched its new military offensive, had perished in central and southern areas.
“This confirms that the targeting has been comprehensive and deliberate against the civilian population and against designated shelter areas,” said Al-Thawabta.
Tanks seen advancing into neighbourhoods
Along the coastal road, an unbroken column of every type of vehicle from carts and beaten-up cars to vans designed to carry goods was moving south, heavily laden with mattresses, gas cylinders and entire families perching on their belongings.
“We are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this barefoot, we don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking as he stood on the edge of a rickety trailer being pulled by a car.
In Sheikh Radwan, which is north of the city centre and has come under heavy bombardment in recent days, residents said they had seen tanks in the heart of their neighbourhood.
They also said Israeli forces had detonated four driverless vehicles full of explosives and the blasts had destroyed many houses.
WATCH | Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in Gaza City as others flee: 
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UN inquiry finds
On the same day a ground offensive was launched in Gaza City, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry report concluded Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a finding emphatically denied by Israeli officials.
Similar explosions had rocked Tel Al-Hawa, which is located southeast of the city centre, and residents there also reported seeing tanks in the streets.
The total Palestinian death toll from the two-year war between Israel and Hamas surpassed 65,000 on Wednesday, according to the Gaza health authorities. Palestinian officials and rescue workers say the true figure is likely higher as many remains are trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Much of Gaza City was laid waste early in the war, but around 1 million Palestinians had returned there to homes among the ruins due to the awful conditions in displacement areas.