CAIRO: Gaza City residents fled under Israeli fire as tanks thrust deeper into the heart of the city on Tuesday, the second day of a stepped-up military offensive that Palestinian group Hamas said could jeopardise ceasefire talks.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators, backed by the United States, have accelerated their efforts this week to seal a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the Gaza war and releasing Israeli captives in the enclave in return for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.
On Tuesday, Israeli tanks deepened their incursion into some Gaza City districts including Shejaia, Sabra and Tel Al-Hawa, where residents reported the previous day some of the most fierce fighting since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinians.
Footage circulated on social media on Tuesday showed families packed onto donkey carts and in the backs of trucks piled with mattresses and other belongings racing through the city's streets to flee areas under Israeli evacuation orders.
"Gaza City is being wiped out, this is what is happening. Israel is forcing us to leave homes under fire," Um Tamer said, a mother of seven. She said it was the seventh time her family had fled their house in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave and one of Israel's first targets at the start of the war in October.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said all of its medical clinics were out of service in Gaza City due to the evacuation orders.
The assault has unfolded as senior U.S. officials were in the region pushing for a ceasefire after Palestinian Hamas made concessions last week.
The armed wings of Palestinian groups said they fought against Israeli forces in Tel Al-Hawa with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire, and inflicted casualties. There was no immediate response from the Israeli military on those claims.
Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday killed six people in a house in Gaza City, nine in two houses in Al-Nuseirat and Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and three people in Rafah on the Gaza Strip's southern edge. An Israeli strike against a group of Palestinians in Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza Strip killed at least seven people, most of them children, medics said.
More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military offensive since then, according to Gaza health officials.
Hopes among Gazans of a pause in the fighting had revived after Hamas last week accepted a key part of a U.S. ceasefire proposal. But gaps still remain between the two sides. — Reuters
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