Israel ups pressure on Gaza City

THE Israeli military pressed ahead with operations around Gaza City this week as US President Donald Trump hosted a meeting on postwar plans for the shattered Palestinian territory.

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Israel is under mounting pressure both at home and abroad to end its almost two-year campaign in Gaza, where the UN has declared a famine.

Mediators have circulated a truce proposal which has been accepted by Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 2023 attack triggered the devastating war. But Israel has yet to give an official response.

On the ground, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 38 people this week, including 16 in Gaza City.

The Israeli military, which is preparing to conquer Gaza City, said troops were operating on the outskirts of the territory's largest city “to locate and dismantle terror infrastructure sites”.

As aid groups have warned against expanding the Israeli offensive, the army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said on X that Gaza City’s evacuation was “inevitable”.

The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war.

In Jabalia, just north of Gaza City, resident Hamad al-Karawi said he had left his home after a message broadcast from a drone ordered people to evacuate immediately.

“We scattered out onto the streets with no place or home to take refuge in,” he said.