Palestinians flee Gaza City beneath Israeli bombardment

Palestinian households streamed out of Gaza City on Sunday (September 14, 2025), some crammed into pick-up vans, others on foot, as Israeli forces pressed their assault on the territory’s primary city centre.

Parents carried their kids whereas the aged hobbled alongside, an AFP journalist reported.

A person in a wheelchair and one other on crutches had been among the many lengthy line of individuals heading south beneath Israeli navy orders.

The navy has issued a number of evacuation warnings for Gaza City, however many residents have instructed AFP they’ve nowhere else to go, noting that Israel has repeatedly struck the world within the south the place it has urged folks to maneuver.

The scenes of mass flight from Gaza City got here as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel in a present of assist, regardless of an Israeli strike in Qatar this week.

The Israeli navy’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, issued on Sunday a warning to these in Gaza’s port space and Al-Rimal neighbourhood to evacuate instantly to a “humanitarian zone” within the south, the place Gazans say there isn’t any more room to pitch tents.

He had on Saturday mentioned greater than 250,000 Gaza City residents had already fled, whereas Gaza’s civil defence company mentioned the determine was nearer to 68,000.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas imply AFP is unable to independently confirm the small print supplied by the civil defence company or the Israeli navy.

Panic and excessive concern’

Prior to the most recent assault, the United Nations had estimated that round one million folks lived in and across the metropolis, the place it formally declared famine final month.

AFP footage confirmed exhausted households shifting alongside the coastal street close to Nuseirat south of Gaza City, with their belongings stacked excessive in automobiles.

In the town itself, “the bombardment hasn’t stopped since dawn,” mentioned Umm Alaa Shaaban, 45, a resident of Tal al-Hawa district in Gaza City’s southwest.

“We haven’t slept all night… The sounds of shelling and explosions have not stopped until now,” she instructed AFP.

According to Shaaban, the Israeli air power “bombed many homes… we had been terribly afraid — my kids screamed in terror.

“We don’t know where to go. The bombardment is everywhere.”

Mohammed Ghazal, 32, who fled from Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, additionally mentioned the strikes had been relentless.

“We are living in a state of panic and extreme fear. The shelling hasn’t stopped since dawn, the explosions are intense and the shooting continuous,” he instructed AFP.

“Israeli forces are using terrifying methods and escalating the bombardment to frighten us and force us to flee south.”

In current days, the Israeli navy has focused a number of high-rise buildings in Gaza City, saying they had been being utilized by Hamas militants.

On Sunday, it mentioned it had struck one other high-rise the place Hamas had arrange “observation posts to monitor the location of… troops in the area”.

AFP additionally noticed an Israeli leaflet dropped on residents, telling them they had been in a “dangerous combat zone” — a message the navy has repeated for weeks.

Across the the Gaza Strip, Israeli strikes killed 23 folks since daybreak Sunday, in keeping with the Gaza civil defence company.