The flight of Gaza City’s residents southward, toward supposed humanitarian zones in southern Gaza that were overcrowded before yesterday’s ground invasion, continued today, while dozens more were reported killed. The death toll now stands at around 65,000 known cases—and a large majority of them are women and children.
The Times of Israel reported the IDF’s military summary today over the last 24-hour period—that the air force struck some 50 targets in the Gaza Strip overnight, most of them in Gaza City, with some 140 targets hit over a 24-hour period. On the ground, the IDF has deployed unmanned vehicles, filled with explosives, and guided them into targeted areas by remote control.
An estimated 600,000 people are still in Gaza City, despite the IDF’s orders. Certainly some are unwilling to leave yet again, but the physical capacity to accomplish the exodus is severely lacking. The Rashid coastal road is completely jammed. Today the IDF announced it would temporarily open Salah a-Din, Gaza’s main north-south highway. They gave a deadline of noon on Friday, Sept. 19, before they close it again.
The IDF estimates that there are several thousand Hamas fighters amongst what were 1 million residents of Gaza City.
Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Anera, and about 20 other aid organizations working in Gaza issued a joint appeal today: “What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry [yesterday] has now concluded is a genocide…. States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.”
