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This weekend, Israeli forces renewed bombings in Gaza City ahead of a planned ground offensive. The campaign would likely forcefully displace nearly 1 million Palestinians to the south. Israel has now stopped the daily 10-hour pauses in fighting that had been allowing trucks and aid into the area. The International Committee of the Red Cross says Israel's plan to mass evacuate the city's residents is incomprehensible. But for many, the moment to flee has already arrived. NPR's Aya Batrawy in Dubai and Anas Baba in Gaza City have this report. And a warning - you will hear the sound of explosions.
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AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: It's the middle of the night in Gaza City, but Israeli troops do not rest. A surveillance drone roams the sky as tanks fire at homes and buildings here.
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BATRAWY: This is what it sounds like in an area of Gaza City where Israeli soldiers are advancing. They're encircling this coastal city from the north, east and south, blasting their way through street by street.
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BATRAWY: On Friday, Israel's military declared all of Gaza City a dangerous combat zone and said it was ending a daytime pause on attacks meant to bring food to the city, where experts on hunger have declared a famine. But Israeli attacks on the city had hardly subsided before that, and aid was only ever trickling in. Satellite images show entire neighborhoods of the city's east flattened in recent weeks by the assault. And this past week, thousands more families fled Israeli fire and encroaching tanks in the city's north.
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BATRAWY: NPR's reporter in Gaza City, Anas Baba, documented their arrival to his neighborhood, which itself is now being evacuated.
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: In front of me, a father with his two children is sitting on the sidewalk. And he's sitting above all his luggage, his tent, some clothes, some food, and that's it.
BATRAWY: The father, Ibrahim Abu Humeidan, says they fled indiscriminate Israeli fire. This is his 17th or 18th time to be displaced in the war. He's lost exact count. Israel's military says every family relocating to southern Gaza will receive, quote, "the most abundant humanitarian aid."
IBRAHIM ABU HUMEIDAN: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: Abu Humeidan says he's on the street now with his family with no money to get south...
ABU HUMEIDAN: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: ...And says they can't even afford food. Israel's government has the tacit backing of President Donald Trump for this Gaza City offensive, despite hundreds of former Israeli security officials saying it's time to end the war and huge protests in Israel demanding a ceasefire that frees hostages held by Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition, however, are determined to expand the war. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich laid out that vision for Gaza.
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BEZALEL SMOTRICH: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: In public remarks just days ago, he said Hamas must be defeated and isolated from the population, that areas of Gaza be annexed by Israel and the gates of Gaza opened for people to leave. And the minister said Israel should cut water and food off to those who remain in Gaza City, so Israeli soldiers don't face a, quote, "well-fed enemy." Israel tried to forcibly evacuate this city before in the war, besieging it, but tens of thousands remained.
The U.N. and aid groups say it's incomprehensible to expect everyone in Gaza City to leave and that nowhere is equipped to absorb them all. Half of Gaza's partially functioning hospitals are in Gaza City and the north. But Israel's military says the evacuation is, quote, "inevitable," and it published a map telling Palestinians where to flee to, saying there's plenty of, quote, "vast empty areas in southern Gaza." Yaakov Garb, an Israeli professor who used satellite imagery to analyze the military's map, says...
YAAKOV GARB: A good portion of these designated open areas are in the areas that the army itself has designated for months now as no-go zones, as red areas. So how is the population supposed to navigate these competing designations?
BATRAWY: The U.N. says nearly 90% of Gaza is now off-limits to Palestinians. And Garb says some of the other slivers of territory supposedly available are full of tents or are uninhabited because they're unsteady sand dunes. Mohammed Haboush, his wife and child have just fled their Gaza City neighborhood of Saftawi under fire.
MOHAMMED HABOUSH: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: He fears this assault on Gaza City is only the start of Smotrich's bigger plan.
HABOUSH: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: "They want to displace us and push us out of the territory," he says. Aya Batrawy, NPR News, Dubai, with Anas Baba in Gaza City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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