The Israeli military said it would open another evacuation route on Wednesday for people fleeing Gaza City as international alarm grew over the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still sheltering there amid Israel’s heavy bombardment and widening ground assault.
Before the expanded offensive was announced Tuesday, the military ordered people in Gaza City to go to what it described as a humanitarian zone in the south. The Israeli military said that more than 350,000 people had fled the northern city as of Tuesday evening, cramming onto the enclave’s coastal road, but roughly half a million were believed to still be there.
On Wednesday, the military announced the opening of another “temporary route” heading south along Salah al-Din Road. In an Arabic-language statement posted on social media, it said the route would be open for 48 hours, starting at noon local time Wednesday.
The start of the long-planned ground offensive drew fierce condemnation from allies of Israel and aid agencies, who said it would worsen an already dire humanitarian situation and derail any diplomatic resolution to the nearly two-year war.
Israel’s government has said seizing Gaza City is necessary to prevent Hamas from regrouping and planning future attacks like the assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the war.
Heavy airstrikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip, with Israel’s military saying on Wednesday morning that more than 150 strikes had been launched over the previous 48 hours.
Salah al-Din Road, which runs roughly north to south through the enclave, links Gaza City to the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, a journey that can take up to seven hours by foot. Israel’s military designated it an evacuation corridor earlier in the war, but a report from Human Rights Watch last year found that it was “rarely, if ever, safe” and had come under Israeli fire.
The assault on Gaza City was announced on the same day that a U.N. commission investigating the war said Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians, which Israel has denied.
Since the war began, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and most people have been displaced multiple times. Hunger is rampant in the enclave, and last month, a U.N.-backed panel of food experts found famine in Gaza City, in a report that Israel has criticized.
In a report on Wednesday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said no food aid had entered northern Gaza since Friday, when it said Israel’s military had closed an important border crossing, Zikim.
Aid groups, the report said, had “grave concerns over fuel and food stock depletion in a matter of days as there are now no direct aid entry points into northern Gaza and resupply from south to north is increasingly challenging due to mounting road congestion and insecurity.”
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