War scenes return to Gaza as Israel escalates attacks, advancing past withdrawal line

Israel’s military resumed a heavy bombardment campaign over recent hours, renewing scenes across the Gaza Strip reminiscent of its genocidal war. 

Eyewitnesses say tanks and military vehicles have simultaneously pushed beyond the withdrawal line into eastern and northern areas of the strip, besieging thousands of residents in their homes.

Witness Abdallah Abu Mheisan told Mada Masr that Israeli vehicles moved into eastern Gaza City on Wednesday night under heavy artillery fire, reaching Mushtahah Street west of Shujaiya — where the military had previously withdrawn from.

Gunfire was extremely heavy as the tanks advanced, and many people fled toward the western parts of the city, Abu Mheisan said. But many in the neighborhood remained trapped inside their homes. 

“It felt like the war had returned,” he said. “The shelling was heavy and people were fleeing, displaced with just a few belongings.”

Quadcopters swarmed over Yafa Street, the Shujaiya junction and the area around Qasr al-Basha, firing at any moving target, eyewitness Mohamed Abu Jamous told Mada Masr.

Some quadcopters dropped explosives on Yafa Street in eastern Gaza City's Tuffah neighborhood, injuring several people who were taken to the Ahli Arab Hospital.

The Israeli military placed new yellow blocks in areas east of Gaza City on Wednesday night, according to another eyewitness who saw heavy machinery carrying the stone blocks and placing them near Mushtaha Street, next to the Tuffah cemetery, west of Shujaiya.

It was clear that the military was expanding the yellow zone — the area it has continued to occupy after the ceasefire began in October, they said, adding that thousands were forced to flee during the night.

Israeli aircraft also carried out dozens of strikes across different parts of Gaza over recent hours, killing dozens and injuring many more, Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, told Mada Masr. 

Basal described several massacres that took place in recent hours, saying that many people are still trapped under the rubble, including in areas where the Occupation military has advanced.

Israeli forces targeted the Religious Endowments Ministry building in the Zeitoun neighborhood on Wednesday, killing at least ten people, including children, he said. 

A group of people gathered at the Shujaiya junction in eastern Gaza City were also targeted in an attack that killed one person and injured several others.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that 32 people had been killed in Israel strikes over the past 24 hours, including 12 children, with many more believed to be trapped underneath the rubble, while 88 people were injured. 

The Israeli military announced on Wednesday evening that it had begun to strike “terrorist targets” across the strip, claiming that “several terrorists” had opened fire on Israeli forces in Khan Younis. 

The strikes are the latest challenge to the fragile ceasefire in the strip. 

The ceasefire’s prisoner exchange phase has continued slowly, as Hamas works with international agencies to find and recover the bodies of Israeli prisoners who were killed during Israel’s two-years assault on Gaza.

But an agreement between Hamas, Israel and the mediators to the ceasefire on a formula for Gaza’s security and political governance has yet to emerge. 

The United Nations Security Council authorized a multinational force under the command of the US-led Board of Peace to enter the Gaza Strip earlier this week, an interim formula for the strip’s governance and administration that Hamas said amounted to an “international trusteeship,” rejecting the imposition of foreign command over Palestinian territory.