Red Cross warns against evacuation of Gaza City as Israel tightens siege

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: The Red Cross warned on Saturday that any Israeli attempt to evacuate Gaza City would put residents at risk, as Israel’s military tightened its siege on the area ahead of a planned offensive.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said that since dawn Israeli attacks had killed 66 people in the territory already devastated by nearly 23 months of war.

“It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions,” International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric said in a statement.

The dire state of shelter, health care and nutrition in Gaza meant evacuation was “not only unfeasible but incomprehensible under the present circumstances.”

Israel is under increasing pressure to end its offensive in Gaza where the great majority of the population has been displaced at least once and the United Nations has declared a famine.

But despite the calls at home and abroad for an end to the war, the Israeli army is readying itself for an operation to seize the Palestinian territory’s largest city and relocate its inhabitants.

On Saturday, at a rally in Tel Aviv demanding the negotiated release of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, captives’ families warned the impending offensive could imperil their lives.

The Israeli military has declared Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone,” without the daily pauses in fighting that have allowed limited food deliveries elsewhere.

The military did not call for the population to leave immediately, but a day earlier COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said it was making preparations “for moving the population southward for their protection.”

Gaza’s civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP 66 people had been killed in Israeli bombing since dawn.

The army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the figure.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency or the Israeli military.

Bassal said 12 people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit “a number of displaced people’s tents” near a mosque in the Al-Nasr area, west of Gaza City.

The army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Umm Imad Kaheel, who was nearby at the time, said children were among those killed in the strike, which had “shaken the earth.”

“People were screaming and panicking, everyone running, trying to save the injured and retrieve the martyrs lying on the ground,” the 36-year-old said.

The civil defense agency said 12 people were killed by Israeli fire as they waited near food distribution centers in the north, south and center.

A journalist working for AFP on the northern edge of Gaza City reported he had been ordered to evacuate by the army, adding conditions had become increasingly difficult, with gunfire and explosions nearby.

Abu Mohammed Kishko, a resident of the city’s Zeitoun neighborhood, told AFP the bombardments the previous night had been “insane.”

“It didn’t stop for a second, and we didn’t sleep all night,” the 42-year-old said.

The government’s plans to expand the war have also drawn opposition inside Israel, where many fear they will jeopardize the lives of the remaining hostages.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said on Saturday the remains of the second of two hostages recovered from Gaza this week have been identified as belonging to the student Idan Shtivi.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group said the return of Idan Shtivi’s body represented “the closing of a circle and fulfils the State of Israel’s fundamental obligation to its citizens.”

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, told the Tel Aviv rally that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “chooses to occupy the Gaza Strip instead of the current outline for a deal, it will be the execution of our hostages and dear soldiers.”

Earlier in August, Hamas agreed to a framework for a truce and hostage release deal but Israel has yet to give an official response.

The Israeli army, whose troops have been conducting ground operations in Zeitoun for several days, said two of its soldiers had been wounded by an explosive device “during combat in the northern Gaza Strip.”

It also said it had “struck a key Hamas terrorist in the area of Gaza City” without elaborating on the identity of the target.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack, which triggered the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 47 are still being held in Gaza, around 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,371 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

Israeli forces struck Gaza City’s outskirts overnight with air and ground fire, destroying homes and prompting further civilian displacement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was scheduled on Sunday to discuss a plan for a wider operation to take control of the city.

Health authorities in Gaza said at least 30 people were killed on Sunday, including 13 near an aid site in central Gaza and two inside a house in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it was reviewing the reports. On Saturday, health officials said 15 others, including five children, were killed in a strike on a residential building.

Residents of Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood reported heavy tank shelling and airstrikes throughout the weekend. Israel has gradually expanded operations in recent weeks, ending temporary pauses for aid deliveries on Friday and declaring Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone.”

Netanyahu described Gaza City as Hamas’ final stronghold. Israeli officials said a large-scale assault could take weeks, with the government signalling its intention to move civilians before deploying additional ground forces.

On Sunday, Netanyahu confirmed Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, though the result of the strike was unclear. Hamas officials did not immediately comment.

International organisations have warned of severe humanitarian pressures. The Red Cross said any mass evacuation would be difficult to absorb given shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies. Local authorities estimate around half of Gaza’s population remains in Gaza City.

Since October 7, when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, more than 63,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials. Israel disputes those figures. The health ministry in Gaza also reported 339 deaths from malnutrition, including 124 children, since the conflict began.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Aug 31 that a strike was carried out on Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida.

– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Aug 31 that Israel had carried out a strike on Abu Obeida, spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

“We have struck the Hamas spokesman, the spokesman for this criminal and murderous organisation, Abu Obeida,” Mr Netanyahu said, according to a readout of a government meeting.

“I hope he is no longer with us, but I notice that there is no one on the Hamas side to clarify this matter,” the Israeli prime minister added.

The spokesman has for years regularly appeared in the Palestinian militants’ video messages wearing military fatigues and a red keffiyeh scarf to obscure his face.

During nearly 23 months of devastating war in Gaza, the group’s senior leadership has been decimated by Israel, which has vowed to eradicate the militants following their Oct 7, 2023, attack.

Israel’s killing of Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh, the head of its armed wing Mohammed Deif and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – accused by Israel of masterminding the O ct 7 attack – along with a string of other commanders and political figures, has considerably weakened the Islamist movement.

Earlier on A ug 31 , Hamas confirmed the death of Mohammed Sinwar, its presumed leader in Gaza, more than three months after Israel said it had killed him in an air strike.

Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 47 are still being held in Gaza, around 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,459 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. AFP

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Lili Bayer

CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.

Local health authorities said Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people on Sunday, including 13 who tried to get food from near an aid site in the central Gaza Strip, and at least two in a house in Gaza City.

The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said they were reviewing the reports.

Gaza health authorities also said at least 15 people, including five children, were killed in an attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City on Saturday.

Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.

The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone”.

“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.

An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.

A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.

HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED

Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing, but said at the start of a government meeting that the outcome of the Saturday strike was still unknown.

Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades.

Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters on Sunday did not immediately comment.

On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the Gaza Strip is equipped to absorb, amid severe shortages of food, shelter, and medical supplies.

“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others including myself didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.

Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave, according to local sources.

Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.

Large crowds demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, and hostages’ families protested outside the homes of ministers on Sunday morning.

The war began with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and 251 taken hostage. Twenty of the remaining 48 hostages are believed to still be alive.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 63,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and it has plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.

On Sunday, the Gaza health ministry said seven more people had died of malnutrition and starvation in the enclave, raising the number of such deaths to 339 people, including 124 children, since the war began. Israel disputes the fatality figures issued by the health ministry in the Hamas-run strip.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Lili Bayer and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Relatives of victims of forced disappearance walk next to newly built ossuaries, part of a reparation initiative with former FARC combatants and retired Colombian soldiers who helped exhume unidentified remains believed to be conflict victims, at the Central Cemetery, in Palmira, Colombia August… Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

Item 1 of 5 Relatives of victims of forced disappearance walk next to newly built ossuaries, part of a reparation initiative with former FARC combatants and retired Colombian soldiers who helped exhume unidentified remains believed to be conflict victims, at the Central Cemetery, in Palmira, Colombia August 27, 2025. REUTERS/Nathalia Angarita

Summary In first project of its kind, ex-combatants restore cemetery’s ‘forgotten corner’

Some 600 bodies may eventually be exhumed for identification

Over 130,000 Colombians disappeared during six decades of conflict

PALMIRA, Colombia, Aug 31 (Reuters) – For nearly a year the ex-rebels worked shoulder to shoulder with their former enemies – retired soldiers from the Colombian military – in a place that viscerally expresses the toll of Colombia’s six decades of conflict: a cemetery.

The former combatants helped exhume unidentified remains believed to belong to conflict victims and then refurbished this corner of the cemetery in Palmira, in western Colombia, building new ossuaries and a tiny chapel.

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The project – the first of its kind – is a reparation effort taking place under the terms of the 2016 peace deal which led to the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and set up a transitional justice court to try former guerrillas and military members for war crimes.

At least 450,000 people are known to have been killed in Colombia’s long civil war. A further 132,877 people are recorded as disappeared – their whereabouts unknown. The vast majority are likely dead.

The ex-combatants taking part in this project were largely mid-level commanders, and their work will be taken into consideration by the transitional justice court when eventual reparations sentences are handed out.

The process forced the ex-combatants to see their erstwhile adversaries as human beings, they told Reuters, and also to engage with conflict victims.

“We’re human beings. They took one side and we took the other, theirs an illegal one and ours a legal one. And in the end we all found ourselves on the same path,” said retired army sergeant Fabian Durango, who spent 16 years in the military after joining in 1998.

“We’re here to try and mitigate the evil we did,” said Durango, a veteran of special forces and counter-insurgency units who spent months in the deep jungle.

Durango, who was 15 when he joined the army, is facing charges in the court’s probe into so-called “false positives,” when soldiers murdered civilians and reported them as guerrillas killed in combat to receive benefits.

“In that moment you thought of yourself more than anything,” said Durango, who admits the crimes. “It’s a harm that whatever you do or don’t do, you’ll never repay.”

“The pain of their mothers has no reparation,” he said.

A former FARC commander who uses the nom de guerre Leonel Paez and declined to give his real name because he feared threats from former comrades said the Palmira project showed understanding is possible.

“We became friends, and we didn’t look at each other differently because you were a soldier or a rebel,” he said. “Destiny put us against each other.”

Paez joined the FARC in 1979, when he was 17, and is accused of participating in kidnappings for ransom and of crimes committed in the region around Palmira. He says he may also face charges over child recruitment.

‘FORGOTTEN CORNER’

The remains of unidentified bodies exhumed from the area of the cemetery known by locals as “the forgotten corner” will have DNA samples taken and compared to a database of families of the disappeared. If identified, their families can choose where to give their loved ones a final, proper burial.

Some victims’ groups have painted a mural and planted a flower garden around the restored area.

Judith Casallas is happy the resting place is now more dignified. Her 19-year-old daughter Mary Johanna Lopez disappeared with boyfriend Jose Didier Duque in 2007 in the nearby town of Pance, where the couple had gone in search of a cabin to rent for his birthday. No trace of them has ever been found.

Casallas’ participation in the project put her in contact with ex-combatants who were active when her daughter, the youngest of three girls and a voracious reader, vanished.

“It was useful to communicate to them where my daughter disappeared. There were a lot of people here from that time, both army and (FARC) signatories,” Casallas said, adding that some ex-combatants told her they would ask around about her case.

Casallas, who suffers from heart and kidney problems, still buys a Christmas present for Mary Johanna every year. She has 18 saved up.

She urged ex-combatants to tell the truth about their crimes to potentially help find the remains of the disappeared.

“The day that I get my daughter’s remains, I will believe she’s gone,” said Casallas.

Some families are getting answers. On Tuesday, the remains of Wilson Losada Borrero were interred at Palmira. He was 19 when he disappeared in 2002 and was the first to be placed in the new ossuaries constructed during the project.

His parents, siblings and other family members offered prayers as a worker cemented a plaque bearing his name and the image of a dove over his ossuary.

“Today I thank God that I have him. Even if it’s his bones,” said his mother Maricela Borrero, who remembered her son as affectionate and a lover of football.

Other mothers looking for their disappeared children should not lose hope, she said.

“Yes, I feel sadness, but God has given me the tranquility, the courage to confront this.”

The Search Unit for the Disappeared, or UBPD, created under the peace deal to find the country’s missing, led the exhumations at the Palmira cemetery.

Records dating back to 1982 show at least 600 unidentified people were buried in the now-refurbished corner, said Marcela Rodriguez, the UBPD’s regional investigator for nearby Cali.

So far, 72 have been exhumed. Those not initially identified through DNA will be placed in the ossuaries.

As many as 60% of Colombia’s disappeared may have ended up in cemeteries, which are a major focus for recovery of remains nationwide, UBPD’s national director Luz Janeth Forero told Reuters after a ceremony where the restored part of the cemetery was handed over by ex-combatants to the community.

“This is a lesson for the country, to insist that peace is possible,” said Rodriguez. “That we can do it, with small actions and concrete works.”

Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien

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