Israeli airstrikes and shelling killed scores across Gaza, including children, while mass displacement intensified amid plans to seize Gaza City.
Several Palestinians were killed and wounded in Israeli airstrikes and shelling across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, while thousands of residents fled Gaza City in recent hours amid fears of an imminent large-scale assault.
Medical sources at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital confirmed that five Palestinians were killed at dawn by Israeli occupation fire southeast of Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza. Local outlets reported additional injuries from artillery bombardment around Abu Sharia Square in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
In northern Gaza, Israeli forces shelled Jabaliya Al-Balad, though no casualties were immediately reported. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes carried out three strikes on the Al-Amal neighborhood, northwest of Khan Yunis in the south of the Strip.
Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary reports that what is happening in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City is exactly the same scenario that took place in Rafah, where everything in sight was entirely levelled to the ground by Israeli forces. pic.twitter.com/2kxOkrzGRC
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) August 18, 2025
The Kuwait Field Hospital in Gaza said a child was killed and several others wounded when Israeli bombs struck a displaced persons’ tent in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis.
Hospital sources also reported that 30 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire across Gaza yesterday, including 16 people who had been waiting for humanitarian aid.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced further deaths caused by starvation, saying that five Palestinians—including two children—died in the past 24 hours. It added that the total death toll from starvation and malnutrition has now reached 263, among them 112 children.
Mass Displacement
Reuters news agency reported that thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in eastern Gaza City, which has been under relentless bombardment for more than a week. Families moved westward and southward, fearing an impending Israeli ground assault.
The Israeli military’s plan to seize control of Gaza City has fueled growing alarm internationally and even inside Israel, where tens of thousands joined mass protests two days ago—the largest since the war began—demanding a prisoner exchange and an end to the fighting.
An Israeli incursion with armored vehicles into Gaza City could displace hundreds of thousands, many of whom have already been uprooted multiple times throughout this war.
Gaza has become the deadliest place on Earth for journalists. With an unprecedented number of Palestinian journalists deliberately killed by Israel, many are asking the question: why is Israel killing Palestinian journalists? Ramzy Baroud answers in his latest segment of 'Ask me… pic.twitter.com/JOtERpzVU2
— Ramzy Baroud (@RamzyBaroud) August 18, 2025
The operation forms part of a broader plan, approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court—to occupy the entire Gaza Strip. The move has deepened divisions between Israel’s political and military leadership and provoked widespread opposition within the country.
Backed by the United States, Israel has waged a genocidal war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, marked by mass killings, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, in defiance of repeated international calls and International Court of Justice orders to stop the assault.
So far, the genocide has killed 62,004 Palestinians, wounded 156,230—most of them women and children—left more than 10,000 missing, displaced hundreds of thousands, and triggered a famine that has claimed the lives of 263 people, including 112 children.
(PC, AJA)
