Israel Destroying Gaza City, Kills 78 across Enclave
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Israeli regime has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City as it plans to forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, while it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave on Sunday, including 32 seeking food.
On Sunday, in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Defense reported a fire in tents near al-Quds Hospital after Israeli shelling. At least five people were killed and three wounded when a residential apartment was hit near the Remal neighborhood.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, said the Israeli army is also using “explosive robots” in residential areas and forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza City.
In a statement on X on Sunday, al-Thawabta said the Zionist army has detonated more than 80 such devices in civilian neighborhoods over the past three weeks, calling it a “scorched-earth policy” that has destroyed homes and endangered lives.
He said more than one million Palestinians in Gaza City and the north of the enclave “refuse to submit to the policy of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing” despite the destruction and starvation caused by the Israeli assault, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli forces have carried out sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the area in the latest phase of its nearly two-year genocidal war.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the area a “combat zone”.
The Government Media Office said the “number of martyred journalists has risen to 247″ since the war began. Other tallies have put the number of journalists and media workers killed at more than 270.
Many residents in Gaza City are opting to stay put despite Israel declaring it a “combat zone”.
It was Gaza’s most populous city before the war began, home to about 700,000 people. Then hundreds of thousands fled under Israel’s forced evacuation threats before many returned, joined by thousands of other displaced from the south, during a January-to-March ceasefire, which Israel broke.
Elsewhere in Gaza on Sunday, an Israeli attack on the center of Deir el-Balah killed at least four people.
Earlier, medical sources said an Israeli bombardment killed at least one person and wounded several in the city, located in the central part of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces killed at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza on Sunday, including 32 aid seekers, according to medical sources.
Since the war began, Israel has killed at least 63,459 people and wounded 160,256.
