Israeli forces are intensifying their attacks on the outskirts of Gaza City, residents say, as the military steps up preparations for a ground offensive to conquer it. Hospitals said women and children were among more than 30 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the city on Wednesday, most of them in the north and west. The Israeli military's chief of staff vowed to "continue striking Hamas's centres of gravity until it is defeated" and its hostages freed. The UN and aid groups said the Israeli operations were already having "horrific humanitarian consequences" for displaced families sheltering in the city, which is home to a million people and where a famine was declared last month. Meanwhile, Israeli protesters took part in what they called a "day of disruption" to press their government to immediately agree a deal that would end the war in return for the release of all 48 Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Hospital officials said Israeli strikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip had killed at least 46 people since midnight. Gaza City's Shifa hospital said it had received the bodies of 21 people, including five killed when an Israeli warplane targeted an apartment in the western Fisherman's Port area. One of the strikes killed the parents and two sisters of three-year-old Ibrahim al-Mabhuh, his grandmother said. Umm Abu al-Abed Abu al-Jubein told Reuters news agency that she had found him buried underneath the rubble of a destroyed column in the home where the displaced family from the nearby town of Jabalia had been sheltering. "He is the only one that God saved... We woke up to the boy screaming," she said. First responders said Israeli drones also dropped incendiary bombs in the vicinity of a clinic overnight in the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, where troops and tanks were reportedly advancing. Videos posted on social media overnight appeared to a fire next to an ambulance inside the Sheikh Radwan Clinic's compound, and another ambulance ablaze on a nearby street. Residents also told Reuters that Israeli forces dropped grenades on three schools in Sheikh Radwan being used as shelters for displaced families, setting tents ablaze, and detonated armoured vehicles laden with explosives to destroy homes in the east of the neighbourhood. "Sheikh Radwan is being burnt upside-down. The occupation [Israel] destroyed houses, burnt tents, and drones played audio messages ordering people to leave the area," said Zakeya Sami, a 60-year-old mother of five. The Israeli military said it was checking the reports. During a visit to Gaza on Wednesday, the military's Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, told troops: "We have entered the second phase of Operation 'Gideon's Chariots' to fulfil the objectives of the war." "Returning our hostages is both a moral and national mission. We will continue striking Hamas's centres of gravity until it is defeated." Hamas denounced what it called the "operations of systematic destruction" by Israeli forces in Gaza City, saying they constituted "an unprecedented violation" of international law. UN agencies and their humanitarian partners in the Gaza Site Management Cluster said the announcement of intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza City on 7 August was "having horrific humanitarian consequences for people in displacement sites, many of whom were earlier displaced from North Gaza [governorate]", which includes Jabalia. They warned that many households were unable to move due to high costs and logistical challenges, as well as a lack of safe space. And they said forcing hundreds of thousands to move south could amount to forcible transfer under international law. Since 14 August, more than 82,000 people had been newly displaced, according to the cluster. Most people moved towards the crowded coast. Only a third have left for southern Gaza, as the Israeli military has instructed. The military has told them to head to the al-Mawasi area, saying medical care, water and food will be provided. However, the UN has the tent camps there are overcrowded and unsafe, and that southern hospitals are operating at several times their capacity. On Tuesday, five children were killed while queuing for water at a tent camp in al-Mawasi. Witnesses said they were struck by an Israeli drone. The Israeli military said on Wednesday that a strike in the area had targeted a "key Hamas terrorist" and that that it was "aware of claims regarding casualties as a result of the strike". The incident was "under review", it added. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel's intention to conquer all of Gaza after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down in July. The hostages' families fear the offensive will endanger those held in Gaza City and want the prime minister to instead negotiate an agreement that would secure their release. Regional mediators have presented a proposal that would see 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages released during a 60-day truce. However, Netanyahu has said he will only accept a comprehensive deal that would see them all freed and Hamas disarmed. On Wednesday, Israelis demanding an immediate deal set fire to tyres and rubbish bins and damaged parked cars in Jerusalem. Thirteen were arrested after they climbed on the roof of the National Library and displayed a banner that said: "You have abandoned and also killed." Some hostages' relatives addressed a large crowd near the prime minister's residence. They included Ofir Braslavski, the father of Rom Braslavski, 21, who was seen emaciated and injured in a video sent by his Islamic Jihad captors in early August. "My son Rom is dying, starving, and tortured. You can see in his eyes that he no longer wants to live. There is nothing harder a father can witness when he cannot do anything," he said, according to the Haaretz newspaper. "How is it possible that a month after my son's video was released, showing the horrors there, the government leaves him there? And the prime minister wants to conquer more territory? I can't understand that." US President Donald Trump, who helped broker the previous ceasefire and hostage release deal in January, wrote on social media: "Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!" The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. At least 63,746 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. The ministry also says 367 people, have so far died during the war as a result of malnutrition and starvation, including six over the past 24 hours. — BBC
