Israel Introduces a Limited 48-Hour Evacuation Route from Gaza City Amid Tank Deployment

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Huge numbers of Palestinians were fleeing Gaza City by any means on Wednesday as the Israeli military pressed its ground offensive, killing dozens in strikes.

Gazans have headed south on foot, by car and on donkey carts, with their few belongings piled high as Israel bombarded the city.

Israel had announced the day before that the United States-backed campaign in the Gaza Strip’s largest city had begun, pledging to destroy the militant group Hamas in the area.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire had killed at least 64 people on Wednesday, including 41 in Gaza City.

The offensive came as a United Nations inquiry accused Israel of committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials had incited the crime.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it was opening “a temporary transportation route via Salah al-Din Street”.

Its Arabic-language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, said the corridor would remain open for just 48 hours from midday local time.

Until now, the army had urged people to flee south along the coastal road toward what it calls a humanitarian zone, including parts of Al-Mawasi.

Salah al-Din Street cuts through the territory from north to south.

‘I wish we would all die together’

The United Nations estimated at the end of August that about one million people lived in Gaza City and its surroundings.

Journalists with the Agence France-Presse news agency have observed new waves of displacement, and the Israeli army said Wednesday that more than 350,000 had so far fled south.

But many Gazans say nowhere is safe and vow to stay in their homes.

Mother of four, Fatima Lubbad, left Gaza City with 10 relatives but said the ordeal was unbearable.

“I wish we would all die together,” said the 36-year-old.

“Last night we slept in the street by the sea in Deir el-Balah — there was nowhere to put a tent… I cried all night as I looked at my children sleeping on the ground.”

The Israeli military said it has struck more than 150 targets in Gaza City since launching its ground assault on Tuesday.

About 40 per cent of residents have fled, according to the Israeli military, and it estimates there are 2,000 to 3,000 Hamas militants in central Gaza City.

UN investigators say Israel committing genocide

Hamas said the assault was “systematic ethnic cleansing targeting our people in Gaza”.

Gaza’s civil defence force said at least 12 people had been killed by Israeli fire in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Media restrictions in the territory and difficulties in accessing many areas mean Agence France-Presse is unable to independently verify the details provided by the civil defence or the Israeli military.

Israel said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report” and called for the “immediate abolition” of the COI.

On Wednesday, Qatar became the latest country to urge Israel to stop its assault on Gaza City, calling it “an extension of its genocidal war against the Palestinian people”.

China followed suit, saying it “firmly opposes Israel’s escalation of military operations in Gaza and condemns all acts that harm civilians and violate international law”.

Pope Leo XVI expressed “deep solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza who continue to live in fear and survive in unacceptable conditions, being forcibly displaced once again from their lands”.

Israel carried out strikes against Hamas leaders in Doha on 9 September, killing five of the militant group’s members and a Qatari security officer.

Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack in 2023, in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s subsequent campaign against Hamas in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people.

The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.