Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military has said, as the World Health Organization (WHO) warns of “worrying trends” in the risk of disease after weeks of Israeli airstrikes.
The increasing evacuation came as Israeli forces closed in on the centre of Gaza City, launching intense bombardments, and claimed Hamas had lost control of the north of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops secured a key Hamas stronghold, known as Outpost 17, in Jabaliya in northern Gaza after a 10-hour battle, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Thursday.
“The fighters completed the takeover of the outpost after 10 hours of fighting, during which they eliminated terrorists, seized many weapons, uncovered terrorist tunnel shafts, including a shaft located near a kindergarten and leading to an extensive underground route,” they said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The IDF added that its troops had discovered a Hamas weapons manufacturing and storage site in a residential building in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in northern Gaza. The IDF reports have not been independently verified.
The Israeli military also said that, for the fifth consecutive day, it had opened an evacuation corridor to allow civilians in northern Gaza to move south.
Those fleeing Israel’s expanding ground assault included children, older people and people with disabilities, most walking with minimal belongings, the UN said. Many carried makeshift white flags for fear they could be targeted. The Israeli military said 50,000 people had fled the north on Wednesday, up from 15,000 on Tuesday.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called on Thursday for a “ceasefire” in Gaza as he opened a conference on aid for the territory. “In the immediate term, we need to work on protecting civilians. To do that, we need a humanitarian pause very quickly and we must work towards a ceasefire,” he told delegates in Paris.
The UN commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, also called for a ceasefire and said both sides had committed war crimes during the conflict.
“The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on 7 October were heinous, they were war crimes – as is the continued holding of hostages,” he said at the Rafah crossing in Egypt on Wednesday. “The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians is also a war crime, as is unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.”
The WHO warned of an increased risk of contagious disease in Gaza because Israeli air bombardments had disrupted the health system, access to clean water and forced people to crowd in shelters.
“As deaths and injuries in Gaza continue to rise due to intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems pose an added danger: the rapid spread of infectious diseases,” WHO said on Wednesday. “Some worrying trends are already emerging.”
The WHO said the lack of fuel in the densely populated area had caused desalination plants to shut down, increasing the risk of bacterial infections such as diarrhoea.
While there have been extremely limited deliveries of food, water and medicine to Gaza, Israel has refused to let in fuel, citing concerns it could be diverted by Hamas, despite calls from the UN and humanitarian aid groups.
Eighteen of Gaza’s 35 hospitals have closed, local health officials say, putting the remaining facilities under enormous pressure. There are reports of operations, including amputations, being carried out by torchlight, without anaesthetic and with vinegar used as a disinfectant.
The WHO said more than 33,551 cases of diarrhoea had been reported since mid-October, mostly among children under five.
The lack of fuel has also disrupted the collection of solid waste, which WHO said created an “environment conducive to the rapid and widespread proliferation of insects and rodents that can carry and transmit diseases”.
Palestinians living in the heart of Gaza City said they could see and hear Israeli ground forces closing in from different directions on Wednesday, increasing the departure of thousands of civilians as urban fighting between Israel and Hamas heated up.
The Israeli army has not provided details of troop movements as it presses its ground attack, vowing to crush Hamas after its deadly 7 October assault inside Israel. But Gaza City residents said the IDF had moved into inner neighbourhoods amid intense bombardment throughout the north.
Clashes took place within about half a mile of the territory’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, a focal point in the war. The Israeli military says Hamas’s main command centre is in and under the hospital complex, and that senior leaders of the group are hiding there, using it as a shield.
Hamas and hospital staff deny this, saying the IDF is using the allegation as a pretext to strike the hospital.
Israel’s military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing on Wednesday that Hamas had lost control of the north. “We saw 50,000 Gazans move from the northern Gaza Strip to the south [on Wednesday]. They are moving because they understand that Hamas has lost control in the north,” he said. “Hamas has lost control and is continuing to lose control in the north.”
Hagari added that there would be no ceasefire but that Israel had been allowing humanitarian pauses at specific times to let residents move south.
While about 70% of Gaza’s population in the north is believed to have fled, UN officials estimate that roughly 300,000 people have stayed behind.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
