Scores of Palestinians have been killed and thousands forced to flee following nearly a week of relentless Israeli bombardment.

The Hamas-run municipality of Gaza City’s southern Zeitoun district described the situation as ‘catastrophic’, with residents enduring almost constant explosions from Israeli air strikes, tank shelling and demolition operations.

Zeitoun, once home to around 50,000 people, has been left without food, water, or functioning infrastructure, following six days of strikes.

At least 40 Palestinians were killed on Saturday alone, Gaza’s civil defence agency confirmed, as Israel pushed forward with its controversial plan to drive more than a million people from the city into sprawling tent camps in the south.

The UN Security Council has already condemned Israel’s vote last week to seize the city, describing the mass displacement of its residents as unlawful. 

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to want Gaza City under complete Israeli control from October 7 – the anniversary of Hamas’s bloody incursion that killed 1,200 people and left 251 hostage. 

In an extraordinary admission, the Israeli military announced it would begin allowing aid agencies to bring in tents again – despite accusations from the UN that Tel Aviv has deliberately choked humanitarian access.

‘As part of the preparations to move the population from combat zones to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection, the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume,’ the Israeli military body COGAT said. 

Israeli military vehicles operate, near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, August 16, 2025

Smoke rises in Gaza after an explosion, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel, August 16, 2025

The Hamas-run municipality of Gaza City’s southern Zeitoun district described the situation as ‘catastrophic’, with residents enduring almost constant explosions over the past six days

Tires are set on fire to block a road during a protest demanding the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas and calling for the Israeli government to reverse its decision to take over Gaza City and other areas in the Gaza Strip, near Jerusalem, Israel, August 17, 2025

The military said it had no comment on when the mass movement of Palestinians would begin, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media that ‘we are now in the stage of discussions to finalise the plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza.’ 

It comes after a coalition of more than 100 organisations last week revealed that not a single aid truck has entered Gaza since March 2.

Israel continues to insist that there is ‘no starvation’ in Gaza, instead accusing UN agencies of failing to distribute aid.

But the UN’s own figures paint a starkly different picture – at least 1,760 Palestinians have been killed since May while seeking food, most shot dead by Israeli troops near distribution sites.

Ghassan Kashko, 40, who is sheltering with his family at a school building in the neighbourhood, told news agency AFP that air strikes and tank shelling were causing ‘explosions… that don’t stop’.

‘We don’t know the taste of sleep,’ he said.

The humanitarian picture is worsening by the day. Gaza’s four remaining hospitals are operating at less than 20 per cent of capacity, starved of medicine and supplies.

The UN estimates that 1.9million Gazans – 90 per cent of the population – have now been displaced, while aid groups warn that famine is no longer a looming threat but an unfolding reality. 

On Saturday, hospitals reported another 11 deaths from malnutrition, including a child, bringing the grim toll to 251 starvation deaths – 108 of them children.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed a baby girl and her parents on Saturday, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. 

Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area.

‘Two and a half months, what has she done?’ neighbour Fathi Shubeir asked, as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 32C. ‘They are civilians in an area designated safe.’

Israel’s military said it couldn’t comment on the strike without more details. It said it is dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities and takes precautions not to harm civilians.

Fourteen-month-old Hazar Arfa, receiving treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, is in critical condition due to severe malnutrition, on August 15, 2025

Palestinians, including children gather as a charity distributes food in Gaza City, where residents face difficulties accessing basic supplies amid the ongoing Israeli blockade and attacks, on August 16, 2025

Palestinian watch as a plume of smoke rises during an Israeli strike on Gaza City’s southern al-Zeitoun neighbourhood on August 8, 2025

In a tragedy that shocked Italy, 20-year-old Marah Abu Zuhri, who had been airlifted to Pisa for emergency treatment after being evacuated from Gaza, died less than 48 hours after arrival. 

Doctors said she was skeletal, suffering a fatal cardiac arrest brought on by extreme muscle and weight loss. 

Elsewhere, an official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the Zikim area of northern Gaza, as well as four people killed in shelling. 

The war, now stretching towards its second year, has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to figures from Gaza’s health ministry, which the UN says are broadly reliable.

For the people of Zeitoun, the immediate concern is survival.

With 80 per cent of Gaza City’s infrastructure already destroyed, and bombardments showing no sign of stopping, thousands more are expected to join the exodus south – into camps that international observers warn are already on the brink of collapse. 

The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began. 

Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza. 

Meanwhile in Israel, families of hostages joined calls for a one-day general strike on Sunday, accusing Netanyahu of recklessly endangering their loved ones with his push to occupy Gaza City in full. 

Anxious families gathered for a ‘nationwide day of stoppage’ to express their growing frustrations over 22 months of war.

Demonstrators block a road during a protest demanding the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas and calling for the Israeli government to reverse its decision to take over Gaza City and other areas in the Gaza Strip, near Jerusalem, Israel, August 17, 2025

Protesters block the main road connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel, 17 August 2025

Families and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attacks, hold placards and national flags during a protest calling for government action to secure their release in Jerusalem on August 17, 2025

Israeli police officers try to move the demonstrators blocking a road during a protest, after families of hostages called for a nationwide strike to demand the return of all hostages and an end to the war in Gaza, in Jerusalem, August 17, 2025

Smoke rises from tyres burnt by demonstrators as people block Israel’s main highway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

People take part in a protest demanding the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas and calling for the Israeli government to reverse its decision to take over Gaza City and other areas in the Gaza Strip

Demonstrators block Israel’s main highway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, after families of hostages have called for a nationwide strike to demand the return of all hostages and an end to the war in Gaza, in Latrun Israel August 17,2025

Families of hostages fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of them thought to still be alive. 

They and other Israelis were horrified by the recent release of videos showing emaciated hostages speaking under duress and pleading for help and food.

The families and supporters have pressed the government for a deal to stop the war – a call that some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have made as well in recent weeks.

A group representing the families urged Israelis into the streets on Sunday. 

‘Across the country, hundreds of citizen-led initiatives will pause daily life and join the most just and moral struggle: the struggle to bring all 50 hostages home,’ it said in a statement.

‘I want to believe that there is hope, and it will not come from above, it will come only from us,’ said Dana Silberman Sitton, sister of Shiri Bibas and aunt of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were killed in captivity.

The US State Department on Saturday said all visitor visas for people from Gaza are being stopped while a review is carried out of how ‘a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas’ were issued in recent days.