FILE- People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. AFP
“Al-Rashid Street will be closed to traffic from the southern sector area at 12:00 (09:00 GMT),” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
“Movement southward will be allowed for those who were unable to evacuate Gaza City. At this stage, the (Israeli military) permits free movement southward without inspection,” he added.
The closure comes as Israel steps up its assault on Gaza City, flattening residential buildings in what Palestinians and rights groups say is an attempt to force mass displacement ahead of an anticipated ground occupation.
Deadly strikes on Gaza City and beyond
Since dawn on Wednesday, at least 23 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the territory, according to Gaza hospital sources, including 19 in Gaza City alone.
Medical staff at Al-Ahli Arab (Baptist) Hospital said six people were killed and others wounded when an Israeli strike hit Al-Falah School in the Zeitoun neighbourhood. The school was sheltering displaced families.
Civil Defence reported that several of its crew were wounded, some critically, after being targeted by an Israeli drone while trying to evacuate casualties from the school.
In central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, a medical source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told Al Jazeera that six Palestinians, including a journalist, were killed in a drone strike.
On Tuesday, Israeli attacks across the Strip killed at least 58 Palestinians, among them another journalist and a mother with her six children.
Starvation deaths mount
The toll from Israel’s blockade-induced famine—the first United Nations (UN) declared one in the Middle East—is also rising.
Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City confirmed the death of an infant from malnutrition and lack of treatment.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 453 people, including 150 children, have now died from starvation and acute malnutrition.
Israel has imposed a deadly land, sea, and air blockade on Gaza since 2 March, preventing the entry of food, medicine, fuel, and life-saving humanitarian aid despite aid trucks piling up at the border.
Humanitarian catastrophe
Since the outbreak of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the Israeli army has killed at least 66,097 Palestinians and injured 168,536, most of them women and children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
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