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UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher on Wednesday slammed impunity in the face of the "horror" unfolding in Gaza, calling on those with power to stop the "21st-century atrocity."In recent weeks Israel has launched a major air and ground offensive on Gaza City in a bid to root out Hamas, exacerbating already dire humanitarian conditions there."So we gather once again to share our testimony and our shame, to try to find words to convey the horror... to repeat that something must be done and, I fear, to accept that nothing will," Fletcher said at an event organised by Jordan and Belgium on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly."A child has been killed on average every hour for almost two years in Gaza, the lucky children sleep in tents" while schools "have become sites of horror, depriving over 700,000 children of their right to education," Fletcher said.Children have suffered a particularly acute toll in Gaza since Israel launched its full-scale campaign in retaliation for the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023."We are told again and again that this is a price a population somehow has to pay for war," Fletcher said."Lawyers and historians will argue long and hard what to call this, and despite bans on international journalists, they will have immense amounts of evidence to consider justice."But until then "our words will not reach... those scraping through the rubble for food (or) enduring amputations without anesthetic.""I fear that we will gather again to solemnly intone the death toll, to try to find new words to express the horror, to call again for action, but how many more must die, and what further damage will we have done to our shared humanity?" Fletcher added.The US-backed Israeli offensive has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee Gaza City, the territory's largest urban center.The offensive came as a United Nations probe accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza.Large parts of Gaza have been laid to waste, and last month a body backed by the United Nations officially declared famine in part of the territory.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed dozens of people across the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, as the military pressed its assault on Gaza City from where hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee.The United Nations estimated at the end of August that around one million people lived in Gaza City and its surroundings, where it has declared a famine.The Israeli military says roughly 550,000 people have since fled the city and moved southward, while Gaza's civil defence agency -- a rescue force operating under Hamas authority -- puts the number at around 450,000.Thaer Saqr, 39, told AFP on Wednesday he had left the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City the day before to head southwards with his wife, children and sister."The tanks on the coastal road... opened fire on us, and my sister was killed," he said.Saqr said he returned to Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital and "will not leave, even if they kill us all.""I appeal to the world: help us. I say to Israel: you want us to evacuate, but how can we when we have no shekels, no transportation, and no place?"The civil defence agency said that "hundreds of families" had been sleeping on the ground for days after fleeing from northern Gaza, unable to secure temporary shelter.The civil defence said Israeli forces killed 40 people in attacks across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including 22 killed by three air strikes on a warehouse sheltering displaced people near the Firas market in Gaza City.The agency's spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, said the dead included six women and nine children.When asked for comment by AFP, the Israeli military said it was "looking into it."Media restrictions in the territory and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the details provided by the civil defence or the Israeli military.AFP footage following the attack showed a scene of devastation, with Palestinians combing through large piles of rubble and warped metal as two men carried away a body wrapped in tattered blankets.In the aftermath, sobbing women knelt over their loved ones, hugging their lifeless bodies wrapped in white shrouds.At least six bodies were laid out on the ground, including two the size of children.Mohammed Hajjaj, who lost his relatives, told AFP that "heavy bombing" hit the building while people were asleep."We came and found children and women torn apart. It was a pitiful sight."Israel first declared the area a safe zone early in the war, but has carried out repeated strikes on it since, saying it is targeting Hamas.Mahmud al-Dreimly, 44, said he gone with his family a day earlier to live in a tent in Gaza City's Al-Rimal neighbourhood."I saw tanks firing into the air and sometimes at people," he told AFP, adding: "I felt death was near".Dreimly said he saw tanks in the Tel al-Hawa and Al-Sabra neighbourhoods, as well as on the outskirts of Al-Rimal.The launch of the ground assault came as a UN probe accused Israel of committing "genocide" in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza health ministry said two Gaza City hospitals have been taken out of service due to the escalation of Israel's ground offensive and damage caused by continued Israeli bombing, as tanks advanced deeper into the territory.The ministry said in a statement that Al-Rantissi Children's Hospital had been badly damaged in an Israeli bombardment a few days ago. At the same time, it reported Israeli attacks in the vicinity of the nearby Eye Hospital, which forced the suspension of services there, too."The occupation deliberately and systematically targets the healthcare system in the Gaza governorate as part of its genocidal policy against the Strip," it said."None of the facilities or hospitals have safe access routes that allow patients and the wounded to reach them," the ministry added.There was no immediate Israeli military comment.Nearly two years into the war, Israel describes Gaza City as the last bastion of Hamas. Since Israel launched its ground assault on the city this month, the military has been demolishing housing blocks it says were being used by the group.On Monday, residents said Israeli tanks had advanced deeper into the Sheikh Radwan area and Jala Street in northern Gaza City, where the two hospitals are located, while in Tel Al-Hawa in the southeast tanks had pushed deeper in the direction of the western parts of the city.They said Israeli forces had used explosive-laden vehicles, detonated remotely, to blow up dozens of houses in the two areas.The offensive has alarmed the families of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. Twenty of those 48 captives are thought to still be alive.Hamas' military wing released a video on Monday of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel, 24. It was not immediately clear when the video was recorded. Ohel was last seen in a video released by Hamas on September 5.A representative said that Ohel's family had consented to the media identifying Ohel but had not given permission for the video to be published. The video was released on the eve of the Jewish New Year, known in Hebrew as Rosh Hashanah.Meanwhile, local health authorities said at least 25 people had been killed by Israeli fire on Monday across the enclave, most of them in Gaza City.

Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes raise ethnic cleansing concerns — OHCHR Satellite images show areas of demolition in Gaza city suburbsFor a decade, Palestinian bank worker Shady Salama al-Rayyes paid into a $93,000 mortgage on his flat in a tall, modern block in one of Gaza City's prime neighbourhoods.Now, he and his family are destitute, after fleeing an Israeli demolition strike that collapsed the building in a cloud of black smoke and dust.The September 5 attack on the 15-storey Mushtaha Tower marked the start of an intensified Israeli military demolition campaign targeting high-rise buildings ahead of a ground assault towards the heart of the densely populated city, which started this week.Over the past two weeks, Israel's armed forces say they have demolished up to 20 Gaza City tower blocks they say are used by Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 50 "fighters towers" had been demolished.The campaign has made hundreds of people homeless. In a similar time frame, Israeli forces have flattened areas in the city's Zeitoun, Tuffah, Shejaia and Sheikh al-Radwan neighbourhoods, among others, ten residents told Reuters. The damage since August to scores of buildings in Sheikh al-Radwan is visible in satellite imagery reviewed by the news agency.Al-Rayyes said he feared the destruction was aimed at permanently clearing the population from Gaza City, a view shared by the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR). Its spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan said in a statement that such a deliberate effort to relocate the population would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing."I never thought I would leave Gaza City, but the explosions are non-stop," Al-Rayyes said. "I can't risk the safety of my children, so I am packing up and will leave for the south." Al-Rayyes vowed, however, never to leave Gaza entirely.Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in May that most of Gaza would soon be "totally destroyed" and the population confined to a narrow strip of land near the border with Egypt.Israel, which has called for all of Gaza City's civilian residents to leave during the offensive, last week closed a crossing into northern Gaza, further limiting scarce food supplies.In response to questions for this story, Israel's military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani said "there's no strategy to flatten Gaza." He said the military's aim was to destroy Hamas and bring hostages home.Tall buildings were used by Hamas to observe and attack Israeli forces, he said, adding that the fighter group used civilians as human shields and also put booby-traps in buildings. Israeli soldiers are regularly killed by IEDs in Gaza.Hamas has denied using residential towers to attack Israeli forces.The goals of the Israel's military and its politicians are not always aligned, two Israeli security sources told Reuters, with one citing ideas such as clearing Palestinians from areas of Gaza for future redevelopment as diverging from military goals. Israel's Prime Minister's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The offensive is the latest phase in Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, spread famine and displaced most of the population, in many cases multiple times, since Hamas led attacks in Israel in Oct 2023.Last week a UN inquiry found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel called the finding biased and "scandalous." UN experts say destruction of civilian housing and infrastructure can amount to a war crime.Israeli spokesperson Shoshani said the buildings were legitimate military targets approved by an intelligence officer and a legal officer.Before the war, Mushtaha Tower was popular with Gaza City's professional class and students drawn to its ocean views and convenient location near a public park and two universities.It originally housed about 50 families, but that number had tripled in recent months as people took in relatives displaced from other parts of Gaza, said al-Rayyes.Scores of tents housing more displaced families had spread around the tower's base. Upper floors of the building had been damaged by previous strikes.On the morning of September 5, a neighbour got a call from an Israeli army officer instructing him to spread the word to evacuate the building within minutes or they were "going to bring it down on our heads," al-Rayyes said.Reuters could not independently verify his account of the evacuation order. It is consistent with accounts of residents of other buildings ahead of Israeli strikes. Shoshani said the military gave residents time to evacuate and ensured civilians had left before hitting the buildings."Panic, fear, confusion, loss, despair, and pain overwhelmed all of us. I saw people running on our bare feet; some didn't even take their mobile phones or documents. I didn't take passports or identity cards," said al-Rayyes, who had once hoped to pay off his mortgage by this year."We carried nothing with us, my wife and my two children, Adam, 9, and Shahd, 11, climbed down the stairs and ran away." Video filmed by Reuters shows what happened next. From the air, two projectiles exploded almost simultaneously into the base of the tower, demolishing it in around six seconds. Dust smoke and debris billowed over the streets and tents of displaced people, who scattered, running and screaming.In response to a question from Reuters, the Israeli military said Hamas had "underground infrastructure" beneath Mushtaha Tower that it used to attack Israeli troops. The military declined a request to provide evidence.In a response to Reuters on Wednesday, the UN's OHCHR said the Israeli military had also not provided evidence to demonstrate other buildings described as fighter infrastructure were valid military targets.Al-Rayyes, who headed the building's residents' association, said the tactic of demolition "makes no sense," even if there was a Hamas presence, which he denied."They could have dealt with it in a way that doesn't even scratch people, not to destroy a 16-floor building," he said, using a different count of its height.After a couple of weeks with family in the city's Sabra district, al-Rayyes has left, like hundreds of thousands of other residents of the city since August, and was setting up a tent in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah on Thursday.In preparation for the ground assault, in recent weeks, up to a dozen homes have been destroyed daily in Zeitoun, Tuffah, and Shejaia, the residents Reuters spoke to said.Amjad al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian Local NGOs Network, estimated over 65% of buildings and homes in Gaza City had been destroyed or heavily damaged during the war. Extensive damage to suburban areas in recent weeks is visible in satellite images of several neighbourhoods.The Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) a non-profit organisation that gathers data on conflicts around the world, documented over 170 demolition incidents carried out by Israel's armed forces in Gaza City since early August, mainly through controlled explosions in eastern areas as well as Zeitoun and Sabra."The pace and extent of demolitions appear more extensive than in previous periods," ACLED's Senior Middle East analyst Ameneh Mehvar told Reuters. By comparison, she said fewer than 160 such demolitions were recorded in Gaza City during the first 15 months of the war.The residents who spoke to Reuters also reported Israeli forces had blown up remotely driven vehicles laden with explosives in the Sheikh Radwan and Tel al-Hawa neighbourhoods, destroying many houses in the past two weeks.Shoshani, the military spokesperson, confirmed the use of ground-based explosives against buildings identified as military targets. He said he did not have information about explosive-laden vehicles specifically.The UN's OHCHR said it had documented controlled demolition of residential infrastructure, saying some entire neighbourhoods were destroyed.Even before the current offensive on Gaza City, almost 80% of buildings in Gaza — roughly 247,195 structures — had been damaged or destroyed since the war started, according to the latest data from the UN Satellite Centre, gathered in July. This included 213 hospitals and 1,029 schools.Bushra Khalidi, who leads policy on Gaza at Oxfam, said tower blocks were one of the last forms of shelter, and warned that pushing people out would "exponentially" worsen overcrowding in the south.Tareq Abdel-Al, a 23-year-old student of finance from Sabra, was hesitant to leave his home with his extended family despite weeks of bombardment in the area, exhausted from being ordered to evacuate so many times in the war, he said. They left on the morning of August 19 only after houses neighbouring their 3-storey home were demolished.Just 12 hours later, an Israeli strike destroyed the family home, he said."Should we have stayed, we might have been killed that night," Abdel-Al told Reuters by phone from Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, describing extensive damage to the whole street."They destroyed our hope of returning," he said.

Israeli forces operate in several parts of Gaza CityHundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee the cityIsraelis rally in Jerusalem to demand release of hostagesIsraeli forces blew up more residential buildings in Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 31 Palestinians and prompting many others to flee, Gazan health authorities said, as Israel's tanks pushed further into the densely populated city.A pregnant woman and her two children were among those killed on Sunday, medics said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the deaths.Relatives sifted through the rubble of one of the apartment buildings that was hit in Gaza City, trying to salvage their belongings."The mother, the boy, the girl, and the baby in her womb - we found them all gone," said Mosallam Al-Hadad, the dead woman's father-in-law, saying his son had been seriously injured in the strike. "(He) was in a critical condition. We took him to the hospital, and his leg was amputated," Hadad told Reuters.Israel said on Saturday its forces had expanded their operations in the Gaza City area over the past few days, killing 30 and locating weapons.On Sunday, witnesses said Israeli tanks were advancing towards the west through Tel Al-Hawa, a southeastern suburb.The Israeli military estimates that more than 450,000 people have left the city since the start of September. Hamas disputes this, saying just under 300,000 have left and that about 900,000 people remain.Israel's Gaza City offensive has drawn rebuke abroad, prompting some of Israel's Western allies to announce they will formally recognise a Palestinian state ahead of the annual leaders' gathering at the UN General Assembly this week.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was expected to announce Britain's recognition of statehood in a break with long-standing policy despite stiff opposition from Israel and disapproval from the United States, the UK's closest ally.The offensive has also alarmed families of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. Twenty of those 48 captives are thought to still be alive.Thousands rallied on Saturday night outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official residence in Jerusalem calling on him to make a deal that will end the war and bring the hostages home."I accuse the prime minister of leading us for two years down a dead-end path, toward endless war and abandoning our loved ones. Why?," said Michel Illouz, whose son Guy was kidnapped from a music festival in the Hamas attacks which triggered the war.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced the forcible displacement of 1.9 mn people in the Gaza Strip.In a statement, the UN agency said that "For 2 years too long, UNRWA has been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, the scale of suffering and destruction is unimaginable." It added, "We call again for a ceasefire now."Last Friday, the UNRWA reported that the cost of displacement from Gaza City in the north of the Strip to the south is estimated at $3,180 per family. The agency also pointed to severe overcrowding in areas designated for the tents of Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive.This comes amid the massive humanitarian crisis facing the people of the besieged Gaza Strip, which has been the target of a war of extermination for nearly two years, and amid the intensification of Israeli occupation operations in Gaza City in recent days.Medical sources in the Gaza Strip announced Sunday that five deaths were recorded in the Strip due to famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours.These sources reported that the total number of deaths from famine and malnutrition has risen to 447, including 147 children.The death toll from the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, has risen to 65,283 martyrs.In a statement Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that hospitals in the Strip received, over the past 24 hours, the bodies of 75 martyrs (four of whom were recovered from under the rubble of destroyed buildings) and 304 wounded.

Israel's military kept up its assault on Gaza City and the wider Gaza Strip Saturday, in attacks that killed at least 60 Palestinians, according to Gazan health authorities.The assault came as 10 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Britain and Canada, are scheduled to formally recognise an independent Palestinian state on Monday, ahead of the annual leaders' gathering at the UN General Assembly.Israel's intensified military demolition campaign targeting high-rise buildings in Gaza City began this week alongside a ground assault.Its forces, which control Gaza City's eastern suburbs, have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western parts of the city.Most of Gaza City's population is sheltering in those parts.The military estimates it has demolished up to 20 Gaza City tower blocks over the past two weeks. It also believes, according to Israeli media, that more than 500,000 people have left the city since the start of September.The resistance group Hamas, which controls Gaza, disputes this figure, saying just under 300,000 have left and around 900,000 remain, including Israeli hostages.On messaging site Telegram, Hamas' military wing earlier released a montage-type image of Israeli hostages, warning that their lives were at risk due to Israel's military operation in Gaza City.Hamas also estimates that since August 11, Israel's military has destroyed or damaged more than 1,800 residential buildings in Gaza City, and destroyed more than 13,000 tents housing displaced families.In almost two years of fighting, Israel's offensive has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health authorities, spread famine, demolished most structures and displaced most of the population, in many cases multiple times.

The director of Al Shifa hospital was on duty Saturday marshalling the facility's response to Israel's assault on Gaza City when two victims killed in a strike were delivered to the ward: his brother and his sister-in-law."I was shocked and devastated to see the bodies of my brother and his wife," said Mohammed Abu Salmiya, who was working in the emergency department of the territory's main hospital at the time."Anything is possible now, as you receive your dearest ones as martyrs or wounded," he told AFP. "The occupation's crimes continue, and the number of martyrs keeps rising."As Israel presses its new offensive to capture the territory's largest urban centre -- despite widespread fears for the safety of both its residents and the hostages -- Salmiya was not the only one dealing with loss.An AFP journalist saw ambulances with sirens blaring pull into the hospital compound early Saturday, bringing more bodies of people killed by Israel's bombardment of Gaza City.Medics unloaded four bodies wrapped in white shrouds and laid them beneath a tree, as another ambulance arrived carrying the injured, including a boy.Gaza City has been the focus of Israel's blistering assault in recent weeks, according to the territory's civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under Hamas authority.Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled the city since Israel launched its offensive, but many remain trapped, too exhausted or impoverished to leave."Death is more merciful," said 38-year-old Mohammed Nassar of Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa area, watching a steady stream of neighbours leave the area.Families could be seen leaving with their belongings piled on trucks, cars, donkey carts and their own shoulders.Nassar, tired and caring for three daughters, said he lacked both the strength and the money to evacuate, leaving him trapped in Gaza City."As for me, my wife and my three daughters, we will wait until the last moment," he said.The civil defence agency reported that at least 20 people had been killed Saturday in strikes on Gaza City.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment on the overall toll or reports of the deaths of Al Shifa director Salmiya's relatives."The occupation wants to forcibly displace everyone so it can destroy Gaza City and turn it into another Beit Hanoun or Rafah -- unlivable for the next 100 years," Nassar said, referring to other parts of Gaza left in ruins by nearly two years of war.Israel has pummelled Gaza City with air strikes and tank fire in its bid to seize what it describes as one of Hamas's last strongholds.The United Nations and foreign powers, meanwhile, have urged it to abandon its plans over fears the offensive could worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in the city, where the UN recently declared a famine.The military launched its ground assault on the city Tuesday and has told residents to head south, but many Palestinians say the journey is prohibitively expensive and they do not know where to go.Many who fled say it took them more than 12 hours to reach the southern areas designated by the military.Evacuation costs have also soared, according to those who left, with truck owners charging as much as $1,500 to $2,000 for the roughly 30-kilometre journey.The civil defence agency said Friday that 450,000 Palestinians had fled Gaza City.The military, which has warned Gazans it will use "unprecedented force" in the city, put the number at approximately 480,000.The United Nations estimated at the end of August that about one million people were living in Gaza City and its surroundings.The military has urged Palestinians to relocate to a "humanitarian area" in Al-Mawasi on the coast, where it says aid, medical care and humanitarian infrastructure will be provided.Israel first declared the area a safe zone early in the war, but has carried out repeated strikes on it since then, saying it is targeting Hamas.Raeda al-Amareen said she was awakened before dawn by the sound of explosions."We want to evacuate but we have no money," she told AFP."We don't even have 10 shekels to buy bread. What are we supposed to do? We'll stay -- either we die or someone finds a solution for us."

From the music, film to publishing industries, growing numbers of Western artists are calling for a cultural boycott of Israel over the Gaza war, hoping to emulate the success of the apartheid-era blockade of South Africa.With most Western governments resistant to major economic sanctions, musicians, celebrities and writers are hoping to build public pressure for more action."There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, globally, we're at a tipping point," British actor Khalid Abdalla ("The Kite Runner", "The Crown") told AFP after signing a petition calling for a boycott of some Israeli cinema bodies.The open letter from Film Workers for Palestine has gathered thousands of signatories, including Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix, who have pledged to cut ties with any Israeli institutions "implicated in genocide"."The avalanche is happening now, and it's across spheres. It's not just in the film worker sphere," Abdalla added during an interview on Friday.At this week's Emmy Awards, winner after winner, from Javier Bardem to "Hacks" actor Hannah Einbinder, spoke about Gaza, echoing similar statements at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.On Thursday, British trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack announced they were joining a music collective called "No Music for Genocide" that will see artists try to block the streaming of their songs in Israel.Elsewhere, Israel faces being boycotted at the Eurovision song contest, authors have signed open letters, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is leading a push to exclude the country from sports events.Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov announced last week at a concert in Britain that he would no longer perform in his home country."I think we are seeing a situation which is comparable to the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa," Hakan Thorn, a Swedish academic at the University of Gothenburg who wrote a book on the South Africa boycott movement."There was definitely a shift in the spring of this year when the world saw the images of the famine in Gaza," added the sociologist.The international boycott of South Africa's white supremacist government began in earnest in the early 1960s after a massacre of black protesters by police in the Sharpeville township.It culminated with artists and sports teams refusing to play there, with boycott busters such as Queen or Frank Sinatra facing widespread public criticism."The history of the Holocaust and criticism of the pro-Palestinian movement for being antisemitic has been a serious obstacle to a broader mobilisation against what Israel is doing right now," explained Thorn.A campaign to boycott Israel, known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, began 20 years ago over the country's occupation of Palestinian territory.Although the anti-apartheid movement is referenced by today's campaigners against the Gaza war, history provides some sobering lessons for them.After the start of the South Africa boycott movement, it took 30 years before the regime fell, exposing the limits of international pressure campaigns."By the early 1970s, it's true to say that boycott was the defining principle of a self-identified global anti-apartheid movement, but the movement on its own was not enough," Feldman, who wrote a book about boycotts, added.The real pain was caused by the gradual asphyxiation of the South African economy as companies and banks withdrew under pressure, while the end of the Cold War sharply increased the country's isolation.Inside Israel, many artists worry about the consequences of the boycott movement.Acclaimed Israeli screenwriter Hagai Levi ("Scenes from a Marriage", "The Affair") told AFP earlier this month that "90 percent of people in the artistic community" were against the war."They're struggling, and boycotting them is actually weakening them."

Gaza's civil defence agency said Friday that 450,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel began its offensive to seize the territory's largest urban centre. "The number of citizens displaced from Gaza to the south has reached 450,000 people since the start of the military operation on Gaza City in August," said Mohamed al-Mughayir, an official of the rescue force. The Israeli military warned Friday it would operate with "unprecedented force" in Gaza City, telling residents to flee as it presses its ground offensive. Israel has pummelled Gaza City with air strikes and tank fire in its bid to seize it, nearly two years into the war that has devastated the Palestinian territory and left Gaza City gripped by a UN-declared famine. The assault comes ahead of a planned move by several Western governments, including Britain and France, to recognise a Palestinian state at a UN summit next week. The military launched its ground assault on Tuesday and has for days been telling residents to head south, but many Palestinians say the journey is prohibitively expensive and they do not know where to go. "For several days, we've been trying to evacuate to the south, but we haven't been able to find any means of transport," Khaled al-Majdalawi, a displaced Palestinian in western Gaza City told AFP, describing "intense and continuous" shelling. The UN estimated at the end of August that about 1mn people were living in Gaza City and its surroundings. The Israeli military has urged Palestinians to head to a "humanitarian area" in Al-Mawasi on the coast. Israel first declared the area a safe zone early in the war, but has carried out repeated strikes on it since then. Nivin Ahmed, 50, fled south from Gaza City to the central city of Deir el-Balah on Thursday, walking with seven family members. "We walked more than 15km (9 miles), we were crawling from exhaustion," she told AFP. "My youngest son cried from fatigue. We took turns dragging a small cart with some of our belongings." Mona Abdel Karim, 36, said she had been unable to secure transport south and had been sleeping on Al-Rashid road for two nights with her family waiting for a driver. "I feel like I'm about to explode. We can't walk on foot — my husband's parents are elderly and sick, and the children are too weak to walk," she said. Israeli fire killed at least 33 people across the territoryFriday, 18 of them in Gaza City, according to a tally of figures given by Gaza hospitals contacted by AFP. The US-backed offensive on Gaza City came as a UN probe accused Israel of committing "genocide" in the Gaza Strip, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials had incited the crime.

British trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack have joined other bands and musicians in seeking to block their tracks being streamed in Israel as part of a cultural boycott campaign over the war in Gaza.The Bristol natives said they had joined "No Music for Genocide", a new collective of musicians modelled on the "Film Workers for Palestine" group.Massive Attack, who have nearly eight million monthly listeners on Spotify, wrote on Instagram on Thursday that they had asked their label, Universal, that "our music be removed from all... streaming services in the territory of Israel".A website for "No Music for Genocide" says it brings together more than 400 artists and labels that "have geo-blocked and removed their music" from Israel in protest at the country's Gaza campaign.On its website, it offers advice to artists on how to geo-block their songs to make them unavailable on streaming platforms in Israel.Massive Attack also announced that they had asked Universal to remove all of their songs from Spotify over investments in a European defence start-up by the CEO of the Swedish streaming platform.Daniel Ek, Spotify's co-founder and CEO, also runs a private equity company that led a consortium of investors which injected 600 million euros ($705 million) in European military artificial intelligence and drone maker Helsing in June.Ek is also chairman of Helsing, which says on its website that its mission is "to protect our democratic values and open societies".Massive Attack, who are long-time anti-war campaigners, criticised the links between Spotify and Helsing, saying that "the hard-earned money of fans and the creative endeavours of musicians funds lethal, dystopian technologies".Spotify declined to comment when contacted by AFP, but a spokesperson told the Guardian newspaper that Spotify and Helsing were "totally separate companies" and Helsing was "not involved in Gaza"."Our technology is deployed to European countries for deterrence and for defence against the Russian aggression in Ukraine only," said a statement from Helsing on its website.Like many other campaigners, Massive Attack cited the cultural boycott of apartheid-era South Africa as inspiration for their actions against Israel."Complicity with that state was considered unacceptable," the group said.After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many music industry companies withdrew or announced measures against Russia.Spotify closed its Moscow office and removed some sanctioned pro-war artists from the platform.Major record labels such as Sony, Universal and Warner all suspended their operations there and called for an end to the violence.Massive Attack took part in a major concert in London on Wednesday evening called "Together for Palestine" featuring top British artists including indie band Bastille, Brian Eno and DJ Jamie xx.With most Western governments resistant to major economic sanctions on Israel over the Gaza war, increasing numbers of musicians, actors and writers are speaking out in the hope of building public pressure for more action.

UN commission says Israel has committed genocide in GazaIt cites destruction of Gaza fertility clinic in findingsIsrael denies allegations of genocideNajwa Abu Hamada felt no sense of justice when a UN Commission of Inquiry cited the destruction of a fertility clinic among actions that it said showed Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.Instead, the commission’s findings revived painful memories in Abu Hamada of the embryos she had stored at the Al-Basma IVF centre and lost when it was hit by Israeli forces in late 2023.Like other Gazans, Abu Hamada feels helpless and without a voice to protest as Israel presses on with its nearly two-year-old military offensive in Gaza and the death toll keeps rising.“The genocide is not only targeting men, children and women, it is also targeting frozen fertility eggs – my only hope,” Abu Hamada said in Qatar, where she now lives. “Israel came and even carried out genocide which reached even the embryos that belong to me at (the) Al Basma centre. What can compensate me?”Abu Hamada has already had one child by using fertility procedures in Gaza, and is still wondering if she can have another child at the age of 49.On Tuesday, she and her husband Eyad Abu Hamada spoke with her doctor Bahaeldeen Ghalayini, an obstetrician and gynaecologist who established the Al Basma IVF centre, about the possibility of undergoing further fertility treatments.“The doctor told us don’t lose hope,” said her husband.The couple had travelled to Qatar for fertility treatment before the Gaza war began. The loss of her embryos back home in Gaza in 2023 dealt a huge blow to her hopes of having another child.Reuters could not independently verify details of her story. But Ghalayini confirmed separately to Reuters that Abu Hamada had embryos that were stored at the Gaza clinic before it was attacked in late 2023.The UN Commission concluded that the destruction of the Al Basma IVF centre was “a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza” — one of five acts or violations that count as genocide under the 1948 convention.“The Israeli security forces launched a tank shell that directly hit the clinic and caused the explosion of five liquid nitrogen tanks, consequently destroying all the reproductive material that was stored therein for future conception of Palestinians,” it said.Israel has not confirmed striking the clinic. It has denied carrying out genocide or deliberately targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure during its military operation in Gaza, which it says is intended to eradicate Hamas following the group’s storming of Israel in October 2023.Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said the UN commission of inquiry’s conclusion that Israel has committed genocide was “scandalous” and “fake,” and described its report as a “libelous rant.”Reuters was first to report on the attack that Ghalayini said destroyed 4,000 embryos plus 1,000 more specimens of sperm and unfertilised eggs.The commission’s 72-page legal analysis is the strongest UN finding to date but the body is independent and does not officially speak for the United Nations. The UN has not used the term ‘genocide’ but is under increasing pressure to do so.Israel has accused Hamas fighters of operating from medical facilities, which Hamas denies.Along with the destruction the fertility clinic, the commission of inquiry cited as evidence of genocide the scale of the killings in Gaza, aid blockages and forced displacement.Abu Hamada had a son, Khalil, who was conceived through fertility procedures at a different clinic. He was killed when he was 17, during a flare-up of violence between Israel and the Islamic Jihad fighter group in 2022.“God blessed me with him after 12 years (of infertility) and five (IVF) transplant operations. He is gone after he became a young man and I wanted him to get married and celebrate his wedding, and I lost him,” said Abu Hamada.“We want everyone to stand by us. The whole world is watching and doing nothing.”