"How are you? Still alive He had just witnessed the beginning of Israel's total conquest of Gaza City, launched on Tuesday, as part of an announced ground offensive that Defense Minister Israel Katz promised last month would see the capital end up like Beit Hanoun, the town in the north of the Palestinian enclave that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have wiped off the face of the earth, as Katz himself boasted when he released a photo of the devastation."
"The Israeli defense minister said [in a tweet on Tuesday] that Gaza was burning. And Gaza was really burning. He then explains that he has decided to stay in the capital, like hundreds of thousands of other people, exhausted, hungry (the UN declared a famine in the city last month), and, in many cases, without the money to pay the exorbitant price of fleeing south."
"This isn't the first time I've done this, Abu Jamous explains. One of the first decisions taken by Benjamin Netanyahu's government upon launching its invasion following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 was to order the evacuation of the entire northern half of the Strip (encompassing over a million people), including the capital. He urged them to flee to the south, where they met the same fate."
Intense bombing preceded a ground offensive aimed at seizing Gaza City. Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed the capital would be devastated like Beit Hanoun. Reports describe Gaza burning amid fierce attacks. Hundreds of thousands remain in the city despite evacuation orders, with estimates ranging from around 60% of the population to 914,000 people in the governorate. Many residents are exhausted, hungry, and unable to afford fleeing south amid a UN-declared famine. Earlier evacuations of the northern Strip pushed civilians south, where they encountered similar devastation. Military forces, including tanks, have surrounded parts of the city during the offensive.
Read at english.elpais.com
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