‘Isn’t there a truce?’ Residents face Israel’s continued assault on Gaza City

Despite a declared “halt” in Israel’s military operation in Gaza City on Saturday, the hundreds of thousands of people still in the strip’s war-torn metropole continued to endure Israeli bombing over the last 48 hours. 

Airstrikes hit populated areas from Gaza City’s east to its west, killing and injuring many.

The aggression of the last two days is in line with Israel’s weekslong operation to invade and capture the city, despite the Israeli military voicing compliance with the Friday night demand of United States President Donald Trump to “immediately stop the bombing on Gaza” to make way for the prisoner exchange agreed to by Hamas.

Naeem Nasser, who is still living in the city, told Mada Masr that Occupation forces have continued intensive bombardment, using remote-detonated devices to raze homes in the southern and eastern neighborhoods of Tal al-Hawa, Tuffah and Sabra.

In the city’s west, Israeli forces targeted a group of civilians in the Rimal neighborhood, once the economic nerve center of the strip’s coastal capital. “The explosion was extremely powerful and violent, to the point that the bodies we found at the targeted site were scattered and in pieces,” said Nasser, describing the Sunday attack. 

At least five people were killed, according to Nasser.

Israeli tanks penetrated as far as the perimeter of south Rimal last week, the furthest point they have reached in their advance on the city.

“We thought the Occupation forces would stop bombing the city and committing crimes after they announced the halt of the military operation,” Nasser told Mada Masr.

Overnight, fire belts tore through the northern part of Jalaa Street, the artery that separates east and west Gaza City, Nasser added.

Israeli bombardment of Gaza City captured on Saturday night by Ramadan Abu Sakran. Via @gazanotice on X.

Israeli forces have also either maintained their positions in the Gaza Strip, or in some cases, as with the Thalathini area south of Gaza City, made advancements. On Saturday night, Israeli forces detonated remote-controlled explosives in the Thalathini area.

Another eyewitness, Youssef al-Salmi, told Mada Masr that Israeli tanks are currently positioned in the northern and eastern parts of Rimal, as well as in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, south of the city.

Salmi also pointed out that the Israeli military has intensified its use of combat helicopters, using them to fire on residential homes throughout Gaza City.

The Abdel Aal family’s home in Tuffah, east of the city, was also bombed on Saturday. At least 18 people were killed in the attack, most of whom were children. Many remain missing under the rubble.

The home, which Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Mada Masr housed many people who have been displaced, collapsed on its residents when it was struck.

“Civil Defense crews tried their best to extract the victims from under the rubble, but due to the Occupation's targeting and the dangerous situation, it was extremely difficult. This is in addition to the lack of equipment available to the Civil Defense Department,” Basal said.

Basal added that the Israeli military has not stopped targeting civilians, bombing and destroying residential buildings, especially in Gaza City, despite the announced approval of the US plan.

In the over six weeks of the Israeli military’s operation to seize Gaza City, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from what was once the most populous city in the strip. But around 250,000 people are still living there, according to comments UNRWA chief Philip Lazzarini made on Thursday. 

The Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster (CCCM) has monitored over 400,000 displacement movements from northern Gaza to its south since August 14 when Israel began its offensive on the city. The group notes that the figures reflect movements, rather than individuals, and that its methodology does not cover all displacement movements. 

Israel’s military has issued repeated warnings against movement from south to northern Gaza, threatening to close the road in the north direction. 

Trump called for Israel to halt its aggression on the strip “immediately” on Friday night after Hamas issued its response to the United States-led initiative for a ceasefire and postwar plan. The movement pledged to release all prisoners in Gaza and to enter into negotiations over the vision for post-war Gaza. 

Hamas’s statement, however, diverged with the vision articulated by Trump last week, as the movement insisted on appropriate field conditions to handover the 50 prisoners, living and dead, still thought to be within the strip in the short-term. 

It also called for Palestinian national discussions toward a model for self-governance in the strip — a stark alternative to the international protectorate model outlined in Trump’s 20-point “Board of Peace” plan.

Military reporters in Israel claimed that the political leadership had instructed the military to halt fire, with Trump later publishing a post on his Truth Social account to express appreciation “that Israel has temporarily stopped the bombing in order to give the Hostage release and Peace Deal a chance to be completed.”

The latest from the White House on Saturday night said that Israel had agreed to a withdrawal line and that once Hamas had confirmed, a ceasefire would be immediate. The image attached to the statement, however, showed a withdrawal line representing only a small fraction of the strip, preserving a kilometers-wide Israeli buffer zone. The withdrawal line shows approximate lines of control in the strip prior to the major Gaza City offensive.

A Hamas source told Mada Masr that the movement is dissatisfied with the proposed withdrawal map, noting that it has demanded that the mediators provide the American side with an explanation of the map and their objection to the distances it includes.

In his first comment on the developments toward a ceasefire on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while work was ongoing toward “a very great achievement,” it was “not yet final.”

“I hope,” said Netanyahu, that “I will be able to announce to you the return of all our hostages, both living and dead, in one fell swoop, while the IDF remains deep in the Gaza Strip and in the areas it controls.”

Those in Gaza don’t have hope, however, only more tragedy. 

Amid the persistent bombing, massacres, and the blockade on the delivery of food and water, eyewitness Ramadan Abu Sakran described people wandering through the aftermath of a strike that destroyed an entire residential area searching for their loved ones.

“In that place, I met a man searching for his only child. He couldn't find a trace of him, not even a piece of his clothing,” Abu Sakran said. “I saw a young man searching for his parents under the rubble and pointing the Civil Defense personnel toward a particular place. ‘They were here. This is their place,’ he said while he dug through the rubble with his bare hands, searching for them.” 

“And then I saw a group of siblings trying to extract the body of their brother, who was stuck between the wall and the ceiling of the house,” Abu Sakran said. “People were shouting repeatedly, ‘Isn’t there a truce?’”