New Gaza evacuations ordered
The new evacuation orders in northern Gaza cover multiple neighbourhoods in eastern and northern Gaza City, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Northern Gaza is home to hundreds of thousands of people who had returned during the ceasefire earlier this year.
Children help carry possessions as residents flee Jabalia on Sunday.Credit: AP
An Israeli military offensive aims to move Palestinians to southern Gaza, so forces can more freely operate to combat militants. Rights groups say their movement would amount to forcible displacement.
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Col. Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the order on social media, and said the military will expand its escalating attacks westward to the city’s centre, calling for people to move towards the Muwasi area in southern Gaza.
Major sticking point
Talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over a major sticking point — whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire agreement.
Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi accused Netanyahu of stalling progress on a deal, saying on social media that the Israeli leader insists on a temporary agreement that would free just 10 of the hostages. About 50 hostages remain, with less than half believed to be alive.
Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri said that “Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war”, without addressing Merdawi’s claim.
During a visit Sunday to to Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, Netanyahu said that the Israel-Iran war and subsequent ceasefire have opened many opportunities: “First of all, to rescue the hostages. Of course, we will also have to solve the Gaza issue, to defeat Hamas, but I estimate that we will achieve both tasks.”
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in April.Credit: AP
Hamas says it is willing to free all the hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to the war in Gaza. Israel rejects that offer, saying it will agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something that the group refuses.
The war in Gaza began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which militants killed 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostage.
Gaza’s Health Ministry on Sunday said that another 88 people have been killed by Israeli fire over the past 24 hours, raising the war’s toll among Palestinians to 56,500. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, but says more than half of the dead are women and children.
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The war has displaced most of Gaza’s population, often multiple times, obliterated much of the territory’s urban landscape and left people overwhelmingly reliant on outside aid, which Israel has limited since the end of the latest ceasefire.
Fewer than half of Gaza’s hospitals are even partly functional, and more than 4,000 children need medical evacuation abroad, a new United Nations humanitarian assessment says.
“We are exhausted, we are tired. We hope to God that the war will end,” said one Palestinian, Mahmoud Wadi.
