Residents of Shejaiya, a neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, were startled by the sudden approach and firing of tanks on Thursday afternoon, along with attacks from drones following the city’s bombing the previous night. The Israeli military had initially affirmed the area was free of Hamas fighters. The surprising assault led to the evacuation of Palestinians under the heavy onslaught.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service reported a total death toll of seven in Shejaiya, stemming from the Israeli bombardments, with fears that more casualties may be buried beneath the rubble. The civilian residents of Shejaiya were urgently advised to vacate the area via a social media update posted by the Israeli military, citing safety reasons.
Meanwhile, Israel has started increasing its troop arrangement along its northern border due to escalating trepidation of a potential conflict with Hizbullah. In response to Israeli bombings on Lebanon that reportedly took four lives of its members, the Lebanese militant organisation claimed to have retaliated by launching multiple rockets at a military base in northern Israel on Thursday. Israel reported no harm as the majority of the rockets were supposedly intercepted by their air defences.
A further Israeli air raid targeted the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service’s central office in al-Nuseirat camp, in central Gaza, leading to the death of three of its members late Thursday night. Additionally, four Palestinians in Rafah, in Gaza’s southern region, were reported dead by medical staff after tanks reportedly shelled the city’s western section, an area where the Israeli army intensified its incursion in recent days. The Israeli authorities have yet to comment on these events.
For the first time since Israel took over Rafah, Gaza’s single border crossing to the outside world, in May, a group of severely ill children were granted permission to exit Gaza. Nineteen children, among them five cancer patients, along with their relatives, were permitted to travel into Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing on Thursday. From there, they were scheduled to continue their journey for medical treatment in Egypt and other foreign countries.