Israeli attacks killed at least 20 people across the Gaza Strip on Friday morning as the military offensive continues, following chilling warnings from Defence Minister Israel Katz that anyone who refuses to leave Gaza City will be considered a target.
Katz warned on Wednesday afternoon that all residents still in the city will be considered as "terrorists and terrorist supporters", as Gaza City continues to be hit by relentless airstrikes and tank shelling which has gone on since August.
The Israeli military claims more than 700,000 people have left Gaza City, while hundreds of thousands are still trapped, refusing to leave or unable to.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army said it was cutting off Al-Rashid Street - the main north-south axis in the Gaza Strip - and would only give access to Palestinians moving to the south of the Strip, away from Gaza City.
More forced displacement
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has warned that the Israeli military’s control over the Netzarim Corridor and Al-Rashid Street, coupled with its prevention of displaced Palestinians from returning to Gaza City, carries grave humanitarian consequences and aims to impose forced displacement on the population.
Netzarim Corridor is located just south of Gaza City, running from the border with Israel in the east to the sea in the west, splitting the Palestinian territory in two.
Israeli forces have been in full control of it since earlier 2024, using it as a launch pad for attacks in the north and central Gaza Strip.
In a statement, Euro-Med said the move seeks to "fragment the territorial integrity of the Gaza Strip" by isolating Gaza City and the northern part of the enclave, turning them into besieged zones.
It added that this strategy imposes coercive conditions on civilians that make their continued presence untenable, effectively resulting in their forced displacement.
"Israel is working to expel everyone from Gaza City by depriving them of food, medicine, and fuel, cutting off humanitarian supplies, and intensifying a systematic starvation policy," the NGO added.
Euro-Med described Katz’s warning as a direct threat to unarmed civilians and a clear indication of an official policy of forced displacement, starvation, and collective punishment.
The monitor further argued that preventing Palestinians from returning to Gaza City amounts to entrenching a systematic policy of blockade and starvation affecting more than 300,000 civilians still trapped in the city.
The closure of the Netzarim Corridor and Al-Rashid Street, the Monitor added, effectively "chokes off the remaining partially functioning hospitals in Gaza City by cutting them off from essential medical supplies and personnel."
Katz said on Wednesday that the military was completing its takeover of Netzarim, which he said will "tighten the encirclement around Gaza City, and anyone leaving it southward will have to pass through the army’s inspection checkpoints."
At least 20 killed across the Gaza Strip
At least twenty Palestinians have been killed since the early hours of Thursday, Al-Jazeera has reported.
A Palestinian child was killed by Israeli drone fire near the Ansar roundabout in western Gaza City, as several neighbourhoods come under heavy shelling and ongoing explosions.
The Israeli army has also detonated and destroyed dozens of homes using explosive-laden vehicles in the neighbourhoods of Sabra and Tel al-Hawa in the south of the city, and Sheikh Radwan and Al-Nasr in the northwest.
This comes amid airstrikes, intense gunfire, and heavy artillery shelling along the main axes of the ground incursion, particularly on Al-Nasr and Al-Shifa streets in western Gaza City.
In the city of Deir al-Balah in the central part of the Strip, the Israeli army struck a tent sheltering displaced persons in the Al-Masha'la area, killing three Palestinians, including a woman.
Another Palestinian was killed and others wounded when an Israeli drone strike targeted a civilian gathering in the city’s Abu Urayf area.
Further south in Khan Younis, a Palestinian woman was killed in gunfire that targeted aid seekers on Al-Tina Street south of the city.
Dozens were also injured in these attacks across the enclave.
The war is now approaching its two year anniversary. Since 7 October 2023, more than 66,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children according to the territory’s health ministry, with the true death toll believed to be much higher.
Over 168,700 others have been wounded, many with life altering injuries.