Israel halted a series of military pauses to allow aid to be delivered to Palestinians in and around Gaza City on Friday and declared the area an active combat zone in a move seen as signaling a threatened offensive to take over the city may be about to get underway. Photo by Jim Hollander/UPI | License Photo
The Israeli military announced Friday that temporary pauses in its military operations in northern Gaza would no longer apply to Gaza City and that it was declaring the area a combat zone.
“In accordance with the situational assessment and directives of the political echelon, starting today at 10:00, the local tactical pause in military activity will not apply to the area of Gaza City, which constitutes a dangerous combat zone, the Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X.
“The IDF continues supporting humanitarian efforts while conducting operations to protect Israel.”
The move withdraws protection zones that allowed aid organizations to distribute food, with localized cease-fires still in place in the al-Muwasi area and parts of central and Southern Gaza.
Tanks and aircraft have been hammering parts of Gaza’s largest city for the past week and Israeli armored units have already taken up positions on the outskirts, with about a million people expected to be forced to flee the area by a potential invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said routing Hamas from the city is the best way to get back Israeli hostages and that pursuing the option in tandem with negotiations for a cease-fire will put the militant group under pressure to Israel’s terms.
Families and supporters of the 50 hostages still being held captive, of whom less than 20 are still believed to be alive, believe the strategy puts their loved ones in grave danger and have been protesting en masse for the past week, demanding an end to the war
The announcement came as a famine declared last week by the top global hunger monitoring agency deepened, with the United Nations warning of “further devastating consequences for civilians where famine conditions already exist.”
“Many people — especially sick and malnourished children, older people and people with disabilities — may be unable to evacuate,” U.N. organizations including Unicef and the World Food Program said in a joint statement.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed the famine on Aug. 22, saying a little under 514,000 people in Gaza, out of a total population of 2 million, were facing “starvation, destitution and death,” with that number forecast to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
It was only the fourth time the Rome-based organization had declared a famine in its more than two-decade-long history. IFSPC is backed by the United Nations and 19 other intergovernmental bodies and NGOs.
