GAZA (Agencies) - At least 53 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since dawn across Gaza as Israel threatened tens of thousands remaining in Gaza City with a forced order to leave, saying it was their “last opportunity” to flee or face the “full force” of Israel’s assault.
Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday that anyone who stayed would be considered “terrorists and terror supporters”.
The continuous bombardment of Gaza City has razed the territory’s largest urban centre, killing dozens of people daily, destroying numerous residential buildings and schools, and forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee to an unknown fate to the south, often targeted on the way.
Reporting from the al-Rashid Street on Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the Israeli military was ordering people to leave, then chasing them on the coastal route south with military choppers, drones and tanks, creating “mayhem and panic”.
“A big part of the reason that people are not now leaving Gaza City is because of the fear and the intimidation created by the Israeli military,” he said.
At least 10 people were killed in Gaza City, and among those Palestinians killed on Thursday were 13 aid seekers in the southern Gaza Strip. The total number of victims attacked while desperately seeking food during the Israeli-induced famine is now nearly 2,600 killed, with close to 19,000 injured.
The overall toll from Israel’s genocidal war has risen to 66,225 killed and 168,938 injuries since October 7, 2023, sources have told Al Jazeera. The toll since Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire in March now stands at 13,357 killed and 56,897 injured.
A child was also killed on Thursday by Israeli drone fire in the Ansar area, west of Gaza City, according to emergency and ambulance services.
Nine people were killed and 13 were injured due to Israel’s targeting of displaced people in the central Gaza Strip, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
A Palestinian and his wife were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
Another Palestinian was killed and more than 10 were injured in an Israeli drone attack south of Deir el-Balah. In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, eight people were injured when an Israeli drone bombed a tent for displaced people inside the Al-Aqsa University campus in the al-Mawasi area, west of the city, which Israel has repeatedly targeted despite declaring it a “safe zone”.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has condemned Israel’s threat to Palestinians who remain in Gaza City as an ominous signal that anyone who cannot or will not leave the area will be targeted by the Israeli military.
“Labelling the nearly 250,000 people currently trapped in Gaza City and the north as ‘terrorists or terror supporters’ by the government of Israel is a statement suggesting planned large-scale massacres: killing more women, children, elderly and vulnerable people unable to move out,” Lazzarini said.
Despite the relentless Israeli carpet bombing of Gaza City, aimed at forcing civilians to flee south, some are making the dangerous choice to return to the north. Thousands of Palestinians have been forced by Israeli bombardment to flee from the north to the south on this perilous route.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that the Israeli military had shut al-Rashid Street, which it described as “one of the vital arteries that civilians rely on for travel between Gaza’s governorates”.
As a result of the escalating hostilities, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday that it had temporarily suspended operations in Gaza City, just as the NGO Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF) did last week.
“The ICRC will continue to strive to provide support to civilians in Gaza City, whenever circumstances allow, from our offices in Deir el-Balah and Rafah, which remain fully operational,” it said in a statement.
In the meantime, Hamas continues to deliberate over a United States ceasefire plan to end Israel’s two-year war. Their acceptance of terms, which are viewed as mostly favourable to Israel’s stated goals, remains uncertain, but the group’s political bureau member Mohammed Nazzal has told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that Hamas will soon announce its position on the US proposal.
Nazzal said Hamas, as representatives of the Palestinian resistance, has a right to express its views “in a way that serves the interests” of the Palestinian people.
The group is discussing Trump’s plan with the goal of stopping Israel’s war on Gaza, he added.
“We are not dealing [with the plan] under the logic that time is a sword pointed at our neck,” Nazzal said.
Trump said on Tuesday that Hamas had “three or four days” to respond to his plan.
Global condemnation has also mounted over Israel’s “unlawful” interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which had been sailing towards the Gaza Strip in an attempt to break the siege and deliver much-needed aid to the famine-struck enclave.
Hamas has decried Israel’s arrest of the activists on board, calling it a “terrorist” and “criminal” act.
Israel said it has seized nearly all of the two dozen vessels, detaining dozens of activists on board. Flotilla organisers, however, report that one ship – the Marinette – is still sailing towards Gaza. While Israel insists the volunteers were seeking to “breach a lawful naval blockade”, international law affirms that humanitarian assistance should be allowed safe passage.