Even as Gaza City empties — with Palestinians fleeing ahead of a planned Israeli assault that’s already advancing — one corner at the heart of this big urban centre in northern Gaza remains crowded on a sweltering afternoon.
Young and old, they stand holding signs that read “No to displacement” and “Save us.” It is a plea for help and a protest, their hope and anger unusually aimed at both Israel and Hamas.
“We can’t take it anymore,” said Mohamed Halas, 45. “Gaza City will be destroyed, and where are we supposed to go?”
Criticizing Hamas publicly has been rare during the militant group’s 20-year firm rule over the Gaza Strip. But pressure is growing for it to make more concessions for a ceasefire after nearly two years of war.
“The needs of a people are more important than the needs of a movement and its political desires,” said Tawfiq Abu Ghalwa, 39.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Thursday his country’s plans to “take over” parts of Gaza City, which its troops have not held since the start of the war. The aim is “defeating Hamas,” he said, by going after militants believed to be dug in among the city’s rubble and in an extensive system of tunnels underneath.
Israel has been firing on these neighbourhoods with drones and artillery since preliminary plans to occupy the area were revealed two weeks ago.
The military has called up 60,000 reservists for the operation, and told another 20,000 already on active duty they will have to stay longer.
But even as he gave the order to send in tanks, Netanyahu also said Israel would begin talks — “immediate negotiations” for a ceasefire — based on a new, more conciliatory stance taken by Hamas earlier this week.
The two sides have been far apart since talks broke off in late July.
Hamas officials confirmed Monday that the group has approved the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators. This comes after Israel announced its plan to seize control of Gaza City.
Now, Hamas has agreed to accept a temporary 60-day ceasefire, during which 10 of the remaining 20 living hostages would be released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli jails. Israeli troops would pull back and talks would begin on a permanent end to the war.
Israel has taken a hard line on all 20 hostages being released at once, with its troops staying in Gaza, while Hamas is removed and disarmed. Now Netanyahu says a ceasefire is worth discussing, though he’s vague on details.
The parallel approaches of occupation and negotiation are fraught with risks for Palestinians in Gaza and Hamas militants, for Israeli hostages and, indeed, for Netanyahu himself.
Israel’s military has begun a planned operation to take over Gaza City, Israeli military spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin said, with its troops establishing a foothold on the city’s outskirts.
He is trying to keep his options open when, in fact, they are shrinking, said Mideast expert Janice Stein at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. After more than 22 months, neither waging war nor attempts at making peace have brought the “total victory” Israel says it is after.
“It is that narrowing of options after almost everything else has been tried, which is where we are now,” she said.
Gaza’s some two million Palestinians are desperately hoping for an immediate ceasefire leading to an end to the war. Most have been forced to move several times already as Israel has expanded its military footprint. More than 85 per cent of the territory is either an active war zone or an area declared off limits by the Israeli military.
At least a million people huddling in Gaza City have been told to get out of the way again. They have few options but to head south and west along the sea shore, to areas already overcrowded and short of food and medical facilities.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that if it goes ahead, the military operation to take Gaza City would “inevitably” lead to “massive death and destruction.”
It could also worsen Gaza’s aid crisis. A UN-backed hunger monitor officially declared a famine on Friday, saying it would spread from this area, with more than half a million Gazans “facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death.” It echoes alarms various UN groups and NGOs have been sounding for weeks.
Israel says it “categorically rejects… the claim of famine.” It has restricted the amount of aid allowed into the territory for months.
Continuing the war is popular with Israeli far-right politicians and other ministers in Netanyahu’s top-level security cabinet, like Eli Cohen, who told Channel 14 in Tel Aviv that “Gaza City itself should be exactly like Rafah, which we turned into a city of ruins.”
Israel’s military chief of staff Eyal Zamir was initially lukewarm on the plan, but this week he backed the call-up of reservists and told his troops: “We will continue to strike Hamas everywhere, pursue them as long as necessary and wherever necessary.”
Others argue Israel is rushing in without considering the dangers, especially to some hostages believed to be held in Gaza City. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated on the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities.
“I wish this will move something and bring some sort of agreement,” said Israeli protester Shay Tothani. “I just want the war to be over, I don’t want any more deaths and any more suffering.”
What’s it like to be a kid living through a war? Working with CBC Kids News, freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife spoke to children living in Gaza City on Aug. 3.
Gaza City is the largest city in Gaza, a Palestinian territory that has been devastated by an ongoing war between Israel and Hamas since October 2023. The children described the difficulties they’ve faced, like not being able to attend school, going hungry, losing their homes and seeing loved ones die. Some of the children have been using music to uplift their spirits and the spirits of those around them.
Military expert Murat Aslan, from Turkey’s Hasan Kalyoncu University, said Israel may be so convinced of its “military superiority” that it is using this “last resort” — an expanded occupation — “as its first one.”
But Hamas has not been defeated after 22 months of fighting, he said.
“I don’t think a military campaign with regular units will be fruitful,” up against the guerilla tactics of Hamas fighters, he said. “They still have the advantage of concealing themselves.”
Since the start of Israel’s ground offensive, the military says 454 of its soldiers have died in Gaza. More than 61,000 Gazans have been killed in that same time, including fighters and civilians, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.
The war was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israeli communities near the border, leaving some 1,200 dead and another 251 taken hostage into Gaza.
“The public is extraordinarily skeptical of what the government is thinking of doing now,” said political columnist and former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas. He calls it the “fatigue factor” of a long, expensive war that’s kept thousands on the front lines, with many reservists fighting for more than a year.
Israel’s actions have been criticized by Canada, the U.K., France, and others. Australia and Israel have been in a war of words. Germany has even imposed a partial arms embargo. And there’s an arrest warrant for Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court, where he’s accused of launching attacks against civilians and “using starvation as a method of warfare.”
Despite all that, and the risks of hostages being killed, Netanyahu has kept the war going.
American military support has helped, along with praise from U.S. President Donald Trump, who called the prime minister a “war hero” this week.
But most of all, Pinkas says, Netanyahu has been driven to keep fighting in Gaza by his own struggle for “political survival.” He can’t afford to lose support from far-right coalition members who have threatened to abandon him if he abandons the war.
And he can’t stop using the war as a way of rallying the country around him, said Pinkas.
“He knows,” said Pinkas, “that if there’s no war, then the day of reckoning is coming in terms of public demands that he be held accountable for what happened” on Oct. 7 and for accusations he’s put up roadblocks to a ceasefire and hostage release since.
So he keeps all options in play, as demands for an end to fighting grow on all sides.