Residents of Gaza City were trapped in houses and bodies lay uncollected in the streets during an intense new Israeli assault on Thursday, even as Washington pushed for a peace deal at talks in Egypt and Qatar. Hamas has warned that a heavy Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could undermine efforts to finally end the war just as negotiations have entered the home stretch. In a statement, the Palestinian Islamist militant group said mediators had yet to provide it with updates on the state of the talks since it made concessions last week in response to a U.S.-backed Israeli peace offer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency was headed to Cairo for more ceasefire talks. U.S. envoy Brett McGurk was in Israel, where he met Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Residents of Gaza City say this week’s assault is comparable to the fiercest battle of the war, which destroyed the enclave’s oldest and biggest settlement in the first weeks of fighting last year. Home to more than a quarter of Gaza’s residents before the war, Gaza City was largely razed to the ground in late 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to homes in the ruins. They have now once again been targeted by the Israeli military. Many say they won’t go. “We will die but not leave to the south. We have tolerated starvation and bombs for nine months and we are ready to die as martyrs here,” said Mohammad Ali, 50.
Ali and his family have relocated several times within the city, saying they had been deprived of food, water, and medicine. “I told my children I’d go to bombed Gaza City as if the war was restarting. We hope there will be a ceasefire soon, but if not that is God’s will.”
A nearby hospital said it had reports of people trapped, and others killed overnight in the fighting in Rimal and Sabra districts of Gaza City, and in northern areas.
