Israel is obliterating Gaza City in front of our eyes. With its launch of Operation Gideon’s Chariots II on 20 August, the occupation now plans to seize control and fully occupy the largest urban centre in the Strip, and forcibly displace its more than one million residents to a so called ‘safe zone’ in the South, before ethically cleansing as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza.
The past two weeks have seen intensifying airstrikes, ground operations, and demolitions of residential areas, and has already resulted in significant casualties and widespread destruction. The Canary spoke to Palestinians.
Gaza City: chaos
23,000 residents have been forcibly displaced in the past week alone, with over one million Palestinians trapped in less than 30% of Gaza City, as the military has now classified Gaza City as a ‘Dangerous Combat Zone’, and told residents their evacuation is ‘inevitable’.
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have begun advancing in key neighborhoods of the city, such as Zeitoun, Sabra, and Jabalia, accompanied by heavy bombardment and street-level destruction. This next phase of the genocide will be intense, with 60,000 reservists mobilised to participate in what is to come, while 20,000 additional reservists, already on active duty, will have their service lengthened.
Attacks have already left Gaza’s neighborhoods in ruins, and with schools, hospitals and UN shelters overflowing, and a full blown famine underway, displaced families are struggling to survive.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned ‘The impact of a full-blown offensive would be beyond catastrophic – not only for those in the city but for the entire Gaza Strip’. There are no safe places to go for Palestinians, who are already exhausted and starving, as so called ‘safe zones’ in the South are systematically and deliberately targeted.
In addition, more than 1.25 million forcibly displaced people are already crowded into the central and Southern parts of the Gaza Strip, living in makeshift tents, and lacking their most basic necessities. Any further population movement would lead to even greater suffering, with the spread of disease and worsening famine.
“It is very scary”
Rana Yassin, the mother of two year old Youssef, has been displaced nine times already. She lives in Tel al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in the Southern part of Gaza City slightly West of Zeitoun. Tel al-Hawa was targeted with missiles and drone strikes overnight on Tuesday 2 September.
We spoke with Yassin on Sunday 31 August, and she said:
Zeitoun is so close, I can arrive there by 15 minutes walking. The army is very near to us here. It’s dangerous, and suddenly we will see them facing us. The conditions here are extremely bad and it is getting worse every day.
They are bombing randomly and targeting civilians, so we are all susceptible to be murdered, all day, every day. We can’t sleep also, because the sound of the explosions and the bombing is so high, and it feels as though your bed is vibrating. It is very scary.
Till now we haven’t left Tel al-Hawa. We haven’t been given an order yet to evacuate, and also we have no place to go in the South. We have no transportation and we need a huge amount of money if we want to go. The very minimum you need, to transfer your luggage is $400, and that is only if you are lucky enough to find transportation, as there is hardly any fuel in Gaza now. So most people in Northern Gaza haven’t left.
The airstrikes and artillery shelling have been relentless in Gaza City over the past few weeks, with residential buildings on streets overcrowded with displaced Palestinians, routinely being targeted.
Israel’s relentless assault
On Monday, at least seven people were killed and several injured when residents and rescue teams arrived at the scene of a targeted apartment block, only for the occupation to launch a second and then third attack on the same area.
IOF tanks continue advancing and pushing deeper into many parts of Gaza City, while bulldozers are systematically moving from street to street, razing entire Gaza City neighborhoods – especially in Zeitoun and Jabalia – to prevent Palestinians from ever returning to their homes, and leaving displaced people with nowhere to go. On 1 September occupation forces even set fire to displaced people’s tents in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Northwest Gaza City, by dropped incendiary flare bombs on them.
As part of its brutal assault on unarmed civilians, including women and children, the IOF has been using quadcopter drones to target civilians.
Quadcopters and robots
Video footage below shows the Abu Iskandar neighbourhood, North of Gaza City, being targeted by a quadcopter, known locally as the ‘killer bird’, which fires bullets and drops explosives directly on civilians.
Remotely detonated, explosive-laden robots have also been used by the occupation to annihilate what remains of the residential blocks and infrastructure in Gaza City. These carry tonnes of explosives, and are often only metres away from crowded Palestinian areas.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, as of August 31 more than 80 booby-trapped robots have been detonated in residential civilian neighborhoods over the past three weeks. This has resulted in large-scale destruction of homes and property, and has exposed civilians to extreme danger.
In just six days during August, the Israeli occupation destroyed 400 homes in the Zeitoun neighbourhood using aerial bombardment and these explosive laden robots. Zeitoun is the largest district in Gaza City, and has been subjected to systematic genocide and widespread destruction since October 2023, but in recent weeks the situation has escalated dramatically, with Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor saying the IOF had been ‘leveling Zeitoun to the ground’ since 11 August.
The use of these booby-trapped robots loaded with explosives is prohibited under international law, as these robots are considered indiscriminate weapons that cannot be directed or limited to military targets-yet their use continues, unhindered, by the occupation.
The total collapse of Gaza City
International aid agencies have warned that Gaza is now facing the total collapse of civilian life.
With food, water, healthcare, and shelter either destroyed or cut off, humanitarian workers describe the situation as beyond the limits of emergency response.
The World Health Organization has reported that disease outbreaks are now expected in the overcrowded displacement zones, while the UN has reiterated that ‘no part of Gaza can currently be considered safe’.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts have faltered. Calls for an immediate ceasefire at the UN Security Council have been blocked repeatedly, and statements from human rights bodies condemning the forced displacement and methods of warfare have, so far, had no practical impact on the ground.
As Israeli occupation forces push forward with their forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, Gaza City is being reduced to ruins in what human rights groups warn amounts to systematic war crimes and collective punishment on an unprecedented scale. With entire neighborhoods erased and more than a million civilians uprooted, analysts warn that the long-term consequences – for Palestinians, for regional stability, and for international law – will be profound.
For now, exhausted families like that of Rana Yassin remain trapped between bombardment and displacement, waiting for the next explosion, the next order, the next uncertain day. Their future, like that of Gaza itself, hangs in the balance – suspended between survival and erasure, as the world looks on.
Featured image and additional images and videos supplied
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.