Netanyahu announces expansion of operations in Gaza City, already battered by Israeli airstrikes

At least 46 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks carried out since Sunday morning in the Gaza Strip, including 44 in Gaza City alone, where Israel has begun ramping up its military operations.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced mid-afternoon an "expansion" of military operations in Gaza City, which faces the threat of a large-scale offensive approved by Tel Aviv in August with the stated goal of fully emptying it of its population. "We are expanding our operations on the outskirts of Gaza City and within the city itself," he said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting, according to a video released by his office.

New evacuation orders

He also said that about "100,000 residents" of Gaza City had already left. According to recent UN estimates, nearly one million people live in and around the city, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, which is already 40% controlled by the Israeli army, according to their statements.

Following this announcement, the Israeli army issued new evacuation notices around 5 p.m. local time for four areas of Gaza City that had already been mentioned the previous day in a spokesman’s statement. This warning specifically threatened a high-rise residential building, al-Rouya, urging people in "adjacent tents" to flee to the so-called humanitarian area of Mawassi, near Khan Younis in the south of the enclave.

The targeted building was bombed just under two hours later, as the Israeli army confirmed in a statement. "The army struck a multi-story building used by Hamas, where intelligence equipment and observation posts were set up to monitor Israeli troop positions in the area," the statement said.

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On Saturday, the Israeli army had already targeted a similar large residential tower in another district of Gaza City, citing the same reasons. These accusations were called "blatant lies" by Hamas, which denounced war crimes targeting "the systematic extermination of our Palestinian people."

Israeli strikes and drone overflights "intensified" following the release of the warnings, according to local correspondents for the Qatari channel al-Jazeera. They reported that at least eight Palestinians were killed in strikes that hit densely populated areas in the al-Shanti and Zarqa neighborhoods.

Previously, medical sources had reported the deaths of at least 31 people since dawn Sunday in airstrikes conducted throughout the day by the Israeli air force. Eight of these victims were killed in a strike on the al-Farabi school, turned into a shelter for displaced people, in the west of the city. In the Sheikh Radwan, Zarqa and Remal neighborhoods, at least 13 more people died, including four children, after a raid hit a tent and a house. Additionally, two other strikes hit two houses in Khan Younis in the southern enclave, though no casualty count was immediately available.

Five new victims of famine

A Hamas delegation completed a visit to Cairo, as part of efforts to end the war in Gaza and Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank. In a statement, the Palestinian movement said the visit aimed to "strengthen consultations, develop joint action and draft a national roadmap." "The visit coincided with the escalation of the occupier’s crimes in the Gaza Strip and its policy of systematic destruction and displacement," the statement added.

The Health Ministry in the Palestinian enclave announced at midday that at least 83 people had been killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, including 31 while waiting for humanitarian aid. In total, at least 64,368 Palestinians have been killed and another 162,776 wounded in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli offensive, the ministry said.

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Additionally, the Health Ministry said earlier that five more Palestinians, including three children, died of hunger in the past 24 hours. These new deaths bring to 387 the total number of famine and malnutrition related deaths in the besieged territory since the start of the war, including 138 children.

In this context, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher said there was a "short window" — until the end of September — to prevent famine from spreading in the Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis regions, where more than a million Palestinians are concentrated in the south of the enclave.