Palestinians in Gaza City described scenes of panic on Tuesday as Israel launched a new ground operation, sending in troops and tanks while pounding the area with heavy airstrikes.
The city streets were filled with people who could not find anywhere to shelter, witnesses told The New York Times. Others sought safety in buildings that were filled with smoke from nearby Israeli strikes or fires.
Nesreen Joudeh said in a telephone interview that she was sheltering with her husband and four children in an apartment whose heavily cracked walls seemed to be crumbling around them. She said she was afraid they would all soon die.
“With every single strike, pieces of concrete fall on our heads, and I scream all the time,” Ms. Joudeh said.
Montaser Bahja, a former schoolteacher, said he was hiding from the Israeli assault in an apartment near the Mediterranean coast. He said an intense bombardment began overnight, and the strikes were making the ground shake beneath his building.
“We are all terrified,” he said. “Death would be more merciful than what we’re living through.”
Last week, the Israeli military ordered the population of Gaza City to evacuate in advance of its assault. It instructed Gazans to go to what it described as a humanitarian zone in Khan Younis and Al-Mawasi in the south of the territory, where it said aid would be provided.
By Tuesday, the Israeli military said roughly half a million people remained in Gaza City after 350,000 had heeded evacuation orders and fled, compounding a humanitarian disaster in the territory where most people have been displaced multiple times and hunger is rampant after nearly two years of war.
Gaza’s health officials said ambulance and emergency workers were unable to reach some of the injured people stranded on streets or trapped under rubble from Israeli strikes.
As the ground operation began, the Israeli military told anyone who remained in Gaza City to leave as quickly as possible. But many said they simply could not afford to do so.
“I don’t have anywhere to go in southern Gaza, no house, no tent, no car in which to travel,” Mr. Bahja said. “They’re not fighting Hamas. They’re fighting all of us civilians.”
Yasmine Ahmed said her young children had “begged” her to let them all flee the city. But she could not bring herself to do it, she said, fearing “death could catch us on the road or wherever we end up.”
On Tuesday, she was hiding with her husband and their five children in a partly collapsed house that shook violently as strikes hit nearby. As she spoke on the phone with a reporter, the sound of explosions and ambulance sirens could be heard in the background.
“We live in constant terror,” she said.
Israel has said it is targeting Gaza City because it is one of the last remaining strongholds of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that led the October 2023 attack on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza.
“These are by far the worst days of the war,” said Hassan Younes, who was also staying on the city’s west side with his two children and wife, who is six months pregnant.
He said they did not flee the city because they could not afford it, but also because they worried that leaving the city and staying in the south might be dangerous for his wife’s pregnancy.
Mr. Younes said his sister had gone south and told him that it was crowded and unsanitary there.
“Drinking water is very dirty here in Gaza City,” Mr. Younes said, “but it is even worse in the south.”
Ms. Joudeh, who was sheltering in the west of the city, said her family could not afford to pay for transportation out because the cost reached about $1,000 or more in recent days. They cannot leave on foot, she added, because her husband has diabetes and high blood pressure. One of her sons was also injured while trying to get flour at an aid distribution site, she said.
She said she felt as if her family, and her city, were at the end of their rope.
“They broke us,” she said, referring to Israel. “What else will they do to us?”
Even if her family does survive the offensive, she said, she is worried about how to feed them. She added she had only four pounds of flour and a few canned goods left at home, and feared there may not be an opportunity to get more aid anytime soon.
“If we get surrounded by the army, we will have to survive on this,” she said. But if the army were to advance toward her neighborhood, she said, “that is the end for us.”
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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