Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had declared a day earlier that ground forces were “tightening the noose” on the city. “We are making progress and our forces from the north and the south are advancing to the heart of Gaza City and are fighting within urban spaces,” he said in a speech to mark the one-month anniversary of the war.
The Israeli advance into Gaza’s most populous city has heightened concerns for civilians. While Israel has repeatedly warned residents to leave, a lack of safe passage, distrust, fear and airstrikes even in areas deemed to be safe zones have meant many have stayed. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the airstrikes and ground attacks that followed Hamas’s attack on southern Israel a month ago, during which as many as 1,400 people were killed and around 240 abducted.
Pressure on Israel mounted on Wednesday as top diplomats from the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies announced a unified stance on the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday after intensive meetings in Tokyo, condemning Hamas, supporting Israel’s right to self-defense and calling for “humanitarian pauses” to speed aid to desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The joint statement from the United States, Germany, Britain, Japan, France, Canada and Italy after a meeting in Tokyo said the countries underscored “the importance of protecting civilians and compliance with international law.”
In his speech on Tuesday evening, Gallant said that there would be “no humanitarian pause without the return of the hostages.” He acknowledged pressure on Israel for a pause but said it was determined to press on.
“It is impossible to stop this fighting until we achieve our goals,” he said, adding that while there would be growing pressure of a pause, Israel is determined to continue. “This war was pushed on us, and we have no way to go back, there’s no stopping, we can only go forward to victory over Hamas and bringing the hostages back.”
However, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted the pressure to take a break from his country’s effort to hit Hamas, he has signaled increasing openness to “tactical” pauses, which U.S. officials view as positive movement.
The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which oversees the Israeli government’s civilian policy in Gaza and the West Bank, said there would be a “humanitarian” pause between the Gaza City neighborhoods of Daraj and Tofah for four hours on Wednesday. It urged civilians to move south on Salah el-Din Road, the main north-south route.
Ahmad Masri, who spoke to a Washington Post photographer as he fled along the road with other civilians, said he had come from the Shati refugee camp, on the coast in northern Gaza city, and seen Israeli troops along their route. “We saw them, they were close,” he said, adding that there had also been dead bodies on the road. “Nobody stopped us or checked our IDs,” he said.
Osama al-Aish, a photojournalist, shared footage with the Post of residents fleeing through neighborhood of Rimal in central Gaza City. Two women carried babies in their arms and other small children followed on foot as one man described how Israeli troops had reached the Ansar roundabout behind them.
Harb reported from London, Birnbaum from Tokyo, Balousha from Cairo. Sarah Dadouch in Beirut and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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