The Israeli army announced on Wednesday evening that it had “completed” its operations launched on June 27 in Shujaiya, a neighborhood in eastern Gaza City that has been the scene of violent fighting since that date. “The soldiers […] completed their mission, which lasted about two weeks, in the Choujaïya area,” according to a military statement.
The offensive allowed the dismantling of “eight tunnels” and the elimination of “dozens of terrorists” as well as the destruction of “combat bases and booby-trapped buildings”. The offensive on Shujaiya, in which soldiers from elite units were engaged on the ground, was extended on Monday to the neighborhoods of the center of Gaza City.
The IDF warning
The Israeli army on Wednesday called on all residents to evacuate Gaza City, the main city in the besieged Palestinian territory. Thousands of leaflets, calling on “all people” to evacuate via “safe corridors”, were dropped over Gaza City, in the north of the territory. These leaflets warn that this already partly destroyed city, where there were until now 300,000 to 350,000 people, according to the UN, remained “a dangerous combat zone”.
Ground troops, backed by tanks and aerial bombardment, have been engaged in intense fighting against Hamas and its allies, the most violent in Gaza City since the start of the war, which has already forced tens of thousands of residents to flee.
These new guidelines “will only add to the mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced multiple times,” warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Wednesday.
After months of failed diplomatic efforts, new talks are set to begin in Qatar to try to move toward a ceasefire and the release of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. CIA Director William Burns was also expected.
A “ghost town”
The army announced on Wednesday that the soldiers had carried out “an operation against terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were using the headquarters of UNRWA,” the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City, “as a base to launch attacks,” and had “eliminated terrorists.”
According to UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, the fighting in recent days has thrown 350,000 people onto the roads, while almost the entire population of the territory has already been displaced by the war. “This is the 12th time we have been displaced. How many more times will we have to endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?” said Umm Nimr al-Jamal, a Palestinian woman who fled Gaza City with her family.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal and witnesses said Israeli forces had withdrawn from Shujaiya. The neighborhood had become “a ghost town,” Bassal said. AFP footage on Wednesday showed residents walking through rubble in a devastated landscape.
Fighting also raged in the south of the territory, where Israeli tanks entered the center of Rafah, according to witnesses who reported intense gunfire in the town on the border with Egypt. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the army had “eliminated or wounded 60 percent” of Hamas fighters during the nine-month war.