Residents Trapped, Bodies Lying When Israel Attacks Gaza

Gaza/DOK UNRWA

JAKARTA - Residents of Gaza are trapped in houses and bodies are lying on the streets as a result of a new Israeli attack.

Hamas said Israel's massive attack on Gaza City this week could destroy efforts to end the war when negotiations had entered their final stages.

The Palestinian Islamic militant group said mediators had not provided up-to-date information on the state of the negotiations since the group made concessions last week in response to the US-backed Israeli peace offer.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel's head of security agency Shin Bet was heading to Cairo for further ceasefire talks. US envoy Brett McGurk was in Israel and met with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Gaza City residents said this week's attack was comparable to the fiercest fighting in the war, which destroyed the oldest and largest settlements in the enclave in the first weeks of fighting last year.

Gaza City was mostly flattened to the ground by the end of 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to their homes in the rubble. They have now once again been ordered out by the Israeli military. Many say they will not leave.

"We will die but will not go south. We have tolerated hunger and bombs for nine months and we are ready to die as martyrs here," Mohammad Ali, 30, who was contacted via text message.

Ali, whose family has moved to the city several times, said they lack food, water and medicine.

The colonizers (Israeli) bombed Gaza City as if the war was about to restart. We hope there will be an immediate ceasefire, but if not then it will be God's will."

Gaza's Ministry of Health said it received reports of people trapped and others killed inside their homes in the districts of Tel Al Eve and Sabra in Gaza City, and rescue teams unable to reach them.

Civil Emergency Services estimate 30 people died in the areas of Tel Al-Hawa and Rimal and were unable to find bodies on the streets.