No Escape: Gaza Residents Face Tanks, Stay Put

Date: 21 September 2025 - 22:03

News ID: ۱۴۳۷۸۲

GAZA CITY (Dispatches) — At least 60 Palestinians were killed Sunday as Israeli forces intensified their assault on Gaza City, advancing deeper into residential neighborhoods and unleashing a wave of deadly airstrikes.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that 75 Palestinians had been killed and more than 300 wounded over the past 24 hours in what it described as a sustained campaign of destruction and mass killing.
The heaviest toll was reported in Gaza City, where at least 37 people were killed on Sunday alone. Witnesses in the besieged enclave said Israeli tanks pushed through Tal al-Hawa and were advancing westward, amid relentless artillery and air bombardments.
“Israeli tanks are advancing towards the west through Tal al-Hawa,” an eyewitness told Reuters.
In Al-Daraj, a densely populated eastern neighborhood, Israeli shelling killed eight civilians, including children, and injured more than 40 others, according to local medical sources.
The Israeli military, in a statement, confirmed it had breached Gaza City from three directions and urged civilians to evacuate areas it designated as “dangerous.”
Human rights observers, however, note that such warnings offer little safety in a strip where nowhere is safe, as repeated strikes have hit so-called “safe zones” and shelters.
The escalation follows the official start of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza City less than a week ago, following months of indiscriminate bombardment. Since the invasion began, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, many of them women and children, as residential buildings, schools, and hospitals continue to be targeted.
Israel claims the assault is part of a broader effort to dismantle Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza, but critics argue the campaign amounts to collective punishment and war crimes. Gaza’s already-crippled infrastructure has been reduced to rubble, with access to water, food, electricity, and medical care severely limited due to the ongoing siege.
In response to the Israeli onslaught, Palestinian resistance fighters launched two rockets toward the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
Tensions are also rising in Israeli occupied territories, where the families of captives held by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza are demanding a halt to the onslaught and accusing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of blocking ceasefire proposals.
“Atone for your sins [and] the sins of your militant and irresponsible regime,” the father of an Israeli soldier held in Gaza said in a

public message directed at Netanyahu over the weekend.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, has warned that the continued assault on Gaza City places the captives’ lives in grave danger.

In a statement, the group said: “Your captives are dispersed inside the neighborhoods of Gaza City, and we will not be concerned for their lives so long as Netanyahu has decided to kill them. The start and expansion of this criminal operation means you will not retrieve any captive—neither alive nor dead.”

The warning followed an ambush on Saturday that left several Israeli soldiers wounded. Four more were reportedly killed last week during fighting in Rafah, a southern city that Israel has largely flattened and occupied.

As Israeli operations intensify and civilian casualties mount, aid organizations warn of a growing humanitarian catastrophe. UN agencies say Gaza faces imminent famine, and hospitals are operating under siege conditions, with medical supplies running out and ambulances targeted.

With no ceasefire in sight and international diplomatic efforts faltering, Palestinians in Gaza face yet another escalation of what many have called a genocidal war—a campaign that shows no signs of slowing.