DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip— Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying it was their “last opportunity” and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter and face the “full force” of Israel’s latest offensive.
At least 21 Palestinians were killed across the territory, according to local hospitals, as Hamas weighed a new proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war and returning the remaining captives taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered it.
A senior Hamas official told The Associated Press that there are some points in the proposal that are unacceptable and must be amended, without elaborating. He said the official response will only come after consultations with other Palestinian factions.
Around 400,000 Palestinians have fled famine-stricken Gaza City since Israel launched a major offensive last month aimed at occupying it, but hundreds of thousands remain, many because they cannot afford to leave or are too weak to make the journey to tent camps in the south.
de Ledesma reports Israeli forces are pressing their offensive in Gaza, with at least 16 Palestinians reported killed across the strip as the world awaits Hamas’ response to President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. “Those who remain in Gaza will be (considered) terrorists and terror supporters.”
The road south was packed as Palestinians fled, with hastily loaded trucks and cars driving alongside people on foot carrying their belongings.
“We left barefoot,” Hussein al-Del said. The Israelis “were striking at random, with no mercy for anyone. We left behind our food, our furniture, blankets, and everything. We left only with our souls,” he said.
Strike hits school-turned-shelter in Gaza City
At least seven people, including first responders, were killed when two Israeli strikes minutes apart hit a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, according to Al-Ahli Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Officials there said more than three dozen people were wounded.
Five Palestinians were killed later in a strike on people gathered around a drinking water tank elsewhere in Gaza City, the hospital said. Shifa Hospital said a man was killed in a strike on his apartment. Strikes in central Gaza killed another eight people, according to Al-Awda Hospital.
Another strike hit a tent in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, seriously wounding two people, according to hospital officials.
Earlier on Wednesday at the same hospital, dozens of people attended a funeral service for a Palestinian freelance journalist, Yahya Barzaq. He was killed Tuesday along with five other people in an airstrike while working for Turkish broadcast outlet TRT.
More than 189 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the outbreak of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Wednesday’s strikes or the strike that killed Barzaq. Israel states it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths, saying its militants are embedded in populated areas.
The military said at least seven projectiles were launched into Israel from Gaza, all of which were either intercepted or fell in open areas. There were no reports of casualties. Hamas’ military capabilities have been vastly depleted, but it still manages to carry out sporadic attacks.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its toll, but has said women and children make up around half the dead.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. U.N. agencies and many independent experts view its figures as the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
