Gaza City’s Last Lifelines Collapsing as Israeli Attacks Intensify, OCHA Warns
Gaza (QNN)- The last remaining lifelines for civilians in Gaza City, including shelters and aid crossings, are collapsing as Israel intensifies its assault, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned, amid plans to occupy the city and forcibly displace more than one million residents.
In five days, 11 UNRWA shelters housing 11,000 people were hit by Israel, OCHA said. More than one million people have been displaced since Israel broke the March ceasefire, including 200,000 in the last month and 56,000 since Sunday alone, OCHA added.
Aid agencies are delivering wheat flour, food parcels, and nearly 560,000 meals daily, but OCHA confirmed that Israel of “systematically blocking” efforts, citing Israel’s closure of the Zikim crossing in northen Gaza and bans on certain food items.
“Opportunities to support starving people are being systematically blocked. Every week, new restrictions are imposed,” the agency said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also warned that Gaza’s hospitals are on the “brink of collapse”.
On Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the Israeli assault, currently centred on Gaza City, is “driving new waves of displacement, forcing traumatised families into an ever-shrinking area unfit for human dignity”.
“The injured and people with disabilities cannot move to safety, which puts their lives in grave danger,” Tedros said. “We call for an immediate end to these inhumane conditions. We call for a ceasefire.”
According to reports, only two hospitals in the enclave’s largest city, al-Shifa and al-Ahli, remain partially functional.
What Is Happening in Gaza City?
Hundreds of Palestinians are being forcibly displaced each day by Israel’s ongoing, indiscriminate bombing of Gaza City, which is killing dozens of civilians daily.
Families are fleeing south, following Israeli threats to head to the so-called ‘safe zone’ of al-Mawasi, an area that is overcrowded and has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli forces.
According to local sources on the ground, Gaza City is being systematically emptied, building by building, family by family.
Sources added that Israeli forces have intensified their attacks on Gaza City, destroying dozens of residential buildings and shelters.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Sunday Israel has carried out “systematic bombing of towers, residential buildings, schools and civilian institutions with the aim of extermination and forced displacement” as its offensive on Gaza City continues.
BREAKING: Israeli occupation forces bomb multiple locations in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City. pic.twitter.com/kjVAHDElVg
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 14, 2025
“While it claims to be targeting the resistance, the field realities prove beyond doubt that the occupation deliberately and according to a clear methodology bombs schools, mosques, hospitals and medical centres, destroys towers and residential buildings, destroys displaced persons’ tents, and targets the headquarters of various institutions including international institutions working in the humanitarian field,” it said in a statement.
In pictures: Israeli fighter jets destroy the Al-Kawthar Tower, a residential building in Gaza City’s Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, displacing hundreds of residents. pic.twitter.com/NQDqT527rQ
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 14, 2025
Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said, “What is falling on Gaza is not just missiles, but barrels of fire and destructive volcanic lava that burn the land and everything on it.”
This comes amid Israeli plans to occupy Gaza City and ethnically cleansing the northern city of its residents by forcibly displacing them.
Heavy bombardment pounded the city, and forces began moving in from the outskirts after weeks of deadly strikes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the launch of “a powerful operation in Gaza” that began on Tuesday, dubbed Gideon’s Chariots 2.
The deadly assault on Gaza City was met with celebration in Israel, as Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “Gaza [City] is burning.”
The offensive began the same day that independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council confirmed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
“Cataclysmic”
The United Nations said the offensive has forced hundreds of Palestinians south, deepening an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that conditions are “nothing short of cataclysmic”.
“There is a constant stream of people making their way from the north, with many walking the 22km [14 miles] to the al-Mawasi ‘humanitarian zone’ – as labelled by Israel – on foot,” she said.
“The hygiene conditions are so dire that, of course, they lead to a massive spread of diseases, skin rashes and all sorts of public health crises.”
Rooted to Their Land
Despite repeated Israeli forced displacement threats and relentless bombardment, Gaza’s Government Media Office confirmed on Tuesday that more than one million Palestinians in the north of the enclave remain “rooted” to their land.
The Office said out of 1.3 million people in Gaza City and towns to its north, about 190,000 have fled to the south while 15,000 returned to the north due to the dire conditions in the areas that the Israeli military had designated as “safe zones”.
The local authorities noted that Israel has been regularly attacking Rafah and al-Mawasi near Khan Younis, where it told people to flee.
“These areas completely lack the basic necessities of life, with no hospitals, no infrastructure, and no essential services such as water, food, shelter, electricity or education, making living there almost impossible,” the Office said in a statement.
This area amounts to no more than 12 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip, it added, noting Israeli occupation is “trying to forcibly confine over 1.7 million people within this limited space, as part of a broader plan to establish what are effectively ‘concentration camps.’”
“This is part of a systematic policy of forced displacement aimed at emptying northern Gaza and Gaza City of their residents, a clear war crime and a crime against humanity, in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”
