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The IDF warns only hospitals in Gaza City are protected as aid sites face targeting. Most civilians have fled, aid is restricted, and famine persists amid Israeli operations.
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip. (IMAGE: REUTERS)
The Israeli military has repeatedly warned humanitarian workers in northern Gaza that only hospitals will be treated as protected sites, while all other aid facilities may be targeted.
According to messages and conversations with aid workers in recent days, reviewed by the Guardian, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) stated that the evacuation order for “all Gaza residents and inhabitants” from Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, also applied “to all humanitarian locations [there], except hospitals.”
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The IDF further warned that, in order “to defeat Hamas,” Israeli troops would operate “with great force.”
The IDF, on Friday, said it had expanded operations in Gaza City and bombarded “Hamas infrastructure”. Between a quarter and half a million of the city’s estimated 1 million inhabitants have already fled, but some displaced Palestinians, traumatised by the advance, said they had no means to leave.
“The situation is really bad. All night long, the tank was firing shells,” said Toufic Abu Mouawad, who left a camp for the displaced on the city’s outskirts but had nowhere else to go. “I want to flee with the boys, the girls, the children. This is the situation that we are living in. It is a very tragic situation.”
Israeli officials stated that they are preparing a “humanitarian zone” in the densely populated and underdeveloped al-Mawasi coastal area in southern Gaza. Plans include constructing new aid distribution sites nearby, supplying electricity to desalination plants, providing limited water, and permitting additional humanitarian assistance to enter the area.
Most of northern Gaza is already emptied of civilians and in ruins. If Israeli forces seize control of Gaza City, the territory’s entire population of 2.1 million will be confined to a small southern enclave. At present, all entry points for goods and people are located in the south, while the Zikim checkpoint, which served the northern region, has been closed since last week.
Much of northern Gaza has been reduced to ruins following 23 months of conflict and a campaign of systematic destruction by Israeli forces, which has intensified in recent months. Very little of Gaza City is expected to remain untouched in the latest Israeli offensive.
“People might want to go back, but what would they go back to? It is very difficult to imagine how it could work,” the Guardian quoted one senior aid official working in Gaza as saying. “There is an emotional attachment, but there is a real question mark over how you would live.”
Kitchen voiced scepticism regarding the IDF’s claim that hospitals would be treated as protected, noting that health facilities in Gaza have been targeted repeatedly throughout the conflict.
Two new aid distribution hubs close to Gaza’s southern border with Egypt have been constructed by the Israeli army. The hubs will be used by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an opaque US and Israel-backed private organisation that started work in May. The GHF has operated five sites distributing food boxes on a first-come, first-served basis, though three of these locations are believed to have been closed.
GHF, in an email, said that 12 truckloads of food had been distributed on Wednesday at two existing sites in the far south of Gaza, one in the ruins of Rafah and another in Khan Younis. The new sites are close to the Egyptian border.
Since last week, the main entry point from Israel serving the north of Gaza has been shut. Aid convoys from the south face massive logistical difficulties and are often refused permission by the IDF. Last month, a famine was declared in Gaza City by UN-backed experts.
The IDF announced plans to expand the Kissufim crossing to facilitate greater delivery of aid to the designated “humanitarian zone” in al-Mawasi. Aid workers noted, however, that this expansion will serve only the southern part of Gaza.
Between March and May, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza, allowing only minimal supplies in the following weeks. Currently, around 250 trucks deliver food and other essentials to Gaza each day, but experts note that this represents only a fraction of the territory’s actual needs, with strict restrictions still in effect.
Katy Crosby, Mercy Corps senior director of policy and advocacy, said, “It is better no doubt than in June and July, but not the kind of better that will move the needle in any major way on the famine, for children dying of malnutrition or in terms of the day-to-day life of the average Gazan.”
Israel
September 20, 2025, 16:37 IST
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