GAZA CITY:
The Israeli military pressed operations around Gaza City on Wednesday, as President Donald Trump prepared to host a White House meeting on post-war plans for the shattered Palestinian territory.
Israel is under mounting pressure both at home and abroad to end its almost two-year campaign in Gaza, where the United Nations has declared a famine.
Mediators have circulated a truce proposal which has been accepted by Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 2023 attack triggered the devastating war. But Israel has yet to give an official response.
On the ground, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 24 people on Wednesday.
The Israeli military, which is preparing to conquer Gaza City, said troops were operating on the outskirts of the territory’s largest city “to locate and dismantle terror infrastructure sites”.
As aid groups have warned against expanding the Israeli offensive, the army’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said on X that Gaza City’s evacuation was “inevitable”.
The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war.
In Jabalia, just north of Gaza City, resident Hamad al-Karawi said he had left his home after a message broadcast from a drone ordered people to evacuate immediately.
“We scattered out onto the streets with no place or home to take refuge in,” he told AFP.
The UN estimates that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City and its surroundings in the north of the territory.
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the US president would host top officials at the White House later on Wednesday to thrash out a detailed plan for post-war Gaza.
“It’s a very comprehensive plan we’re putting together,” Witkoff told Fox News, without offering more details.
Trump stunned the world earlier this year when he suggested the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip, clear out its inhabitants and redevelop it as seaside real estate.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the proposal which sparked a global outcry.
In Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood on Wednesday, residents reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight.
“Warplanes struck several times, and drones fired throughout the night,” said Tala al-Khatib, 29.
“Some neighbours have fled… But wherever you flee, death follows you,” she said.