The Palestinians leave Gaza City fearing the Israeli offensive while others stay there, call the ceasefire

Fearing an imminent Israeli soil offensive, thousands of Palestinians have left their homes in the eastern regions of Gaza City, now under a constant bombing, to point out points to the west and south in the broken territory.

The plan of Israel to take control of Gaza City aroused alarms abroad and at home, where tens of thousands of Israelis have organized some of the largest demonstrations since the start of the war, urging an agreement to put an end to the fighting and release the 50 remaining hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

The planned offensive prompted the Egyptian mediators and the cease-fire of Egyptian and Qatari to intensify efforts to forge an agreement between the militants of Israel and Hamas, and a Hamas official said on Monday that the group had approved the last cease-fire proposal.

The manager did not provide more details and he was not immediately clear what they accepted. Hamas has responded positively in the past while offering unacceptable changes to Israel.

“The inhabitants of Gaza City are like someone who has been sentenced to death and who awaits execution,” said Tamer Burai, a businessman from Gaza City.

“I move my parents and my family to the south or tomorrow. I cannot risk losing any of them if there is a surprising invasion,” he told Reuters via a cat application.

Look | Israel Pounds Gaza City last week:

Israel strikes Pound Gaza City before the planned ground offensive

At least 123 people were killed in 24 hours, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says people will have the opportunity to leave Gaza before a planned soil offensive, but no one is pushed back.

Dozens of Palestinians organized a demonstration in Gaza City by calling for the end of the war on Thursday and forced displacement, and that Hamas intensifies the talks to avoid the Israeli land offensive.

“Our message remains the same: a plea for humanity. For the world and for those gathered in Cairo, enough trips, enough death,” Mohammed Al-Jarou, 37, told CBC News to Gaza City.

“We plead for our (neighbor) country of Egypt to exert pressure on each to put an immediate end to this war, no matter what it costs.”

Umm Ahmed al-Banna, 36, says that Hamas’ requests do not align with what she and others ask.

“All we ask is the peace and security of our children,” said Al-Banna, a widowed mother of four children. “Psychological war is mentally killing us. We die a slow death every day.”

Some 1,000 families have already fled south

An Israeli armored incursion in the city of Gaza could move hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were uprooted several times during the war.

Ahmed Mheisen, director of the Palestinian shelters of Beit Lahiya, a suburb devastated by the war, as a city of Gaza, said that 995 families had left the Gaza region in recent days for the South.

With the imminent Israeli offensive, Mheisen put the number of tents necessary for an emergency shelter at 1.5 million, claiming that Israel had only granted 120,000 tents on the territory during a ceasefire in January-March.

The United Nations humanitarian office said last week that 1.35 million people already needed emergency shelter in Gaza.

Look | Israeli demonstrators are asking for the end of the war:

The demonstrators through Israel ask the end of the war while the government provides for additional military action

Hundreds of thousands of people through Israel have come down to the street to demand that the government reach an immediate ceasefire and guarantee the release of hostages remaining in Gaza. The Israeli government is moving forward in planning new military offensives on the territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Gaza City as the last great urban bastion in Hamas. But with Israel already holding 75% of Gaza, the soldiers warned that the widening of the offensive could endanger the still alive hostages and attract troops in a prolonged and fatal guerrillas.

Dani Miran, whose son Omri was taken hostage on October 7, said that he feared the consequences of an Israeli terrain offensive in Gaza City.

“I’m afraid my son will be injured,” he said in an interview with Reuters in Tel Aviv on Monday.

The latest series of indirect cease-fire talks ended at the end of July in a dead end, the games exchanging its collapse.

Diplomatic impasse

Israel says that he will agree to stop hostilities if all hostages are released and that Hamas lay down his arms – this last request publicly rejected by the Islamist group until a Palestinian State is created.

An official in Hamas told Reuters on Monday that the group rejects the Israeli requirements to disarm or expel its leaders from Gaza.

Strong differences remain within the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the way in which humanitarian aid will be delivered around the enclave, where malnutrition is plagued by groups and aid warning of the beyond famine.

Stressing the gaps in the talks on a cease-fire, the American president Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform on Monday: “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed !!!

On Saturday, the Israeli army said that it was preparing to help the Palestinians for tents and other shelter equipment before moving them from combat areas in the south of the enclave. It has not provided more details on the quantities or how long it would take to put the equipment in the enclave.

“The existing tents where people live (in the south) have been exhausted and will not protect people from rainwater. There are no new tents in Gaza due to Israeli restrictions on the aid of border passages,” Palestinian economist Mohammad Abu Jayyab told Reuters.

He said that some families of Gaza City had started to rent goods and shelters in the south and had moved to their property.

“Some people have learned from the previous experience, and they don’t want to be caught by surprise. In addition, some believe that it is better to move earlier to find a space,” said Abu Jayyab.

The war began when activists led by Hamas stormed the border in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli accounts.

According to local health officials, more than 61,000 Palestinians have since been killed in local health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.