IDF try to force civilians out of Gaza City as ground offensive continues

Israeli troops have been trying to force more people out of their Gaza City homes as part of a ground offensive that is destroying large parts of Gaza’s biggest urban centre.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday they had carried out 150 air and artillery strikes before the ground operation that began early on Tuesday morning. Two army divisions are working their way slowly towards the city centre and are expected to be joined by a third in the coming days.

Several of the airstrikes brought down apartment blocks in the midst of tented camps inhabited by displaced people. Israel claims the buildings were being used by Hamas for surveillance.

Also hit on Tuesday night was Gaza City’s al-Rantisi children’s hospital. According to the Gaza health ministry, half the hospital’s 80 patients managed to flee the building, but the rest, including four children in intensive care and eight premature babies, remained.

Overnight strikes killed 16 people, according to local hospitals, bringing the total Palestinian death toll in two years of war to 65,000. On Tuesday, a UN human rights commission published a report concluding that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza.

The coast road leading south from Gaza City has been packed with families trying to flee the offensive. On Wednesday, the IDF announced the opening of a second route, through the middle of the Gaza Strip, for two days, to try to encourage the exodus.

However, many residents of Gaza City and the rest of the north, are very unlikely to have received any of the text messages or social media posts put out by the IDF because strikes in the region had damaged the telephone network.

Of the million Palestinians living in and around Gaza City, the Israeli military estimates 350,000 people have left and moved south over the past month. The UN estimate is 238,000.

Contrary to Israeli claims, none of the Palestinians interviewed by the Guardian in recent weeks have said they came under pressure to stay in the city by Hamas. However, many residents said they have been unable or reluctant to leave for multiple other reasons.

Some are physically unable to move, weakened by many months of near starvation, some cannot afford the costs of transport or the price of a rudimentary plastic sheeting tent at their destination.

Very many consider the south to be as dangerous as Gaza City. Israel has frequently bombed the “humanitarian zone” it established at al-Mawasi. The sprawling camp at al-Mawasi was hit by an Israeli strike overnight, killing two parents and their child.

Many Israeli security officials, including the IDF chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, have privately questioned the wisdom of the offensive, in terms of its human cost, and because they think there is little chance it will achieve its stated goal of the total destruction of Hamas.

There have been no security checks of the mass of people fleeing south so most observers believe it probable that Hamas militants will regroup elsewhere. IDF officials have estimated there are between 2,000 and 3,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters ready for battle in the city centre, but IDF intelligence estimates suggest that is only a small fraction of their surviving forces.

Many Israeli observers and commentators believe the real motives for the offensive are political: to keep Israel in a state of war so as to fend off early elections in which Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition could be unseated; and to make Gaza City uninhabitable so as to put pressure on Palestinians to leave and for other countries to receive them.