DaysofPal – The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have intensified attacks on displacement shelters in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, part of a broader effort to force Palestinians further south.
Since August 13, the Israeli occupation forces have escalated shelling and air raids on Zeitoun, with several strikes hitting shelters directly.
The Israeli bombardment, combined with a suffocating siege, has compelled thousands of displaced Palestinians to dismantle their tents and flee deeper into southern Gaza, satellite images show.
The indiscriminate targeting of homes and shelters is consistent with the Israeli wider war strategy, which rights groups say makes no distinction between civilians and combatants.
United Nations experts and legal scholars argue that the nearly two-year Israeli war in Gaza amounts to genocide.
Western governments, long shielding the Israeli occupation under the banner of “self-defense,” are increasingly voicing alarm over the humanitarian catastrophe.
Some are warning that the Israeli plans to seize northern Gaza and depopulate areas such as Zeitoun risk worsening the already dire civilian suffering.
For example, Zeitoun alone hosts around 11 displacement shelters, each crowded with 4,000–4,500 Palestinians enduring siege and hunger.
At the start of the war, the IOF dug trenches around the neighborhood and established the Netzarim Corridor, effectively splitting Gaza in two.
Now, the renewed offensive appears designed to terrify civilians into leaving permanently, part of what observers say could amount to ethnic cleansing through the destruction of all habitable infrastructure.
Between August 11 and 16, the Israeli occupation forces targeted al-Falah School in Zeitoun and a nearby tent encampment on al-Lababidi Street.
Additional strikes hit Majida al-Wasila School in Gaza’s Nassr neighborhood and tents in Sheikh Ajilin.
Human rights experts warn that this systematic targeting of schools and tent shelters, the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, constitutes potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, as such facilities are explicitly protected under international humanitarian law.
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