Airstrikes, tank shelling and gunfire around Gaza City have killed at least 18 people and forced many families to flee. Sheikh Radwan experienced sustained shelling and airstrikes that displaced residents and prompted urgent humanitarian concerns. Local authorities reported civilian casualties near a food distribution site and within homes, while the Israeli army said it was reviewing some of those reports. Activists and an aid flotilla prepared to sail to Gaza as temporary military pauses that allowed some aid deliveries ended. Israeli officials planned security-cabinet talks on a staged offensive, with evacuation plans likely to cause massive internal displacement.
Israeli airstrikes and gunfire have killed at least 18 people in and around Gaza City, local health authorities have said, as Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet prepared on Sunday to discuss plans to seize the city. Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighbourhoods of Gaza City, told reporters the area had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday, overnight and on Sunday morning, forcing many families to flee.
Rezik Salah, a father of two from Sheikh Radwan, told Reuters that Israeli troops were now crawling into the heart of the city from the east, north and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave. In Jerusalem, Israeli officials said Netanyahu's security cabinet would meet on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, although a full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks.
Israel has said it aims to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in a move that Mirjana Spoljaric, of the Red Cross, said would provoke a massive population displacement that no other part of the Gaza Strip would be able to absorb. About half of the territory's more than 2 million residents are sheltering in Gaza City, local sources estimate, although thousands are believed to have left or to be trying to leave.
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