Palestinians who fled from the Israeli ground offensive on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza have given harrowing accounts of the situation there.
One man told the BBC that he saw streets strewn with bodies after being ordered to leave a shelter by Israeli forces, while a woman said some people left in such panic that they left their children behind.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees called for a temporary truce to enable safe passage for families still wishing to flee, while two local hospitals warned that they were running out of supplies.
The Israeli military said its troops were continuing operations against Hamas fighters while enabling the secure evacuation of civilians.
More than 400 people are reported to have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced since the military said it was launching a third offensive in the Jabalia area on 6 October, saying it was rooting out Hamas fighters who had regrouped there.
It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Israel to try to revive the stalled diplomatic process for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal in the wake of last week’s killing by Israeli troops of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
After meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he told reporters that he wanted “to make sure that this is a moment of opportunity to move forward”.
Mr Blinken also emphasized the need for Israel to take additional steps to increase and sustain the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme interviewed several displaced people who had recently fled Jabalia camp and sought refuge in the nearby Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City.
A man called Saleh said he had “endured a siege for 16 days” while sheltering with his family at Abu Hussein Primary School for Boys.
Medics and rescue workers said more than 20 people were killed in an Israeli air strike there last week. The Israeli military named on Tuesday 18 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters who it said were among the dead.
“The shelling grew closer and intensified each day, with Israeli forces advancing towards us. Today, we heard bombings very near… We feared for our lives,” Saleh said.
“We received messages via [Israeli] quadcopters urging us to evacuate, so we began to move under the watch of Israeli soldiers, who demanded we go towards either the south or west of Gaza… I had my grandmother with me, she was unable to move, like many others.”
Another man, Mohammed al-Danani, said he was at the same school and that he had “witnessed the bodies of martyrs on the streets” after complying with the evacuation order.
Engy Abdel Aal said she had been in the Abu Rashid Pond area when quadcopters broadcast orders directing people to move towards the town of Beit Lahia, just north of the camp.
“The situation was incredibly difficult, no-one knew where to go. It’s tragic and catastrophic in every sense,” she said. “Some people had to flee without their children, leaving them behind in the school while they escaped with others.”
The Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it troops were “continuing combat in the Jabalia area, while enabling the secure evacuation of civilians from the combat zone”.
“As a result, thousands of civilians have been evacuated. Dozens of terrorists were arrested from among the civilians,” it said in a post on X that included a video showing crowds walking through damaged streets, external.
The military also said that troops “eliminated 10 terrorists that posed a threat and operated adjacent to them” in a single strike, without giving any details.
The Palestinian Red Crescent meanwhile posted a video that it said showed an ambulance transporting the bodies of five people, including children, killed by shelling in Jabalia town on Monday.
Another graphic video filmed on the same day showed paramedic Nevin al-Dawasah trying to help dead and wounded men, women and children at a tented camp next to Jabalia Preparatory School for Boys.
After fleeing the area on Tuesday, Ms Dawasah told AFP news agency that people had been complying with an evacuation order when “suddenly there was shelling”.
“We had martyrs and wounded and there was no safe passage for the ambulances to come,” she said.
The Israeli military has not yet commented on the reports.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, said its staff in northern Gaza were reporting that they could not find food, water or medical care.
“The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble,” he wrote on X. “People are just waiting to die. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone.”
Mr Lazzarini called for “an immediate truce, even if for few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area and reach safer places”.
A UN spokesman said Israeli authorities were continuing to deny requests from its Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to help rescue civilians trapped under the rubble and to deliver desperately needed supplies to hospitals.
The director of the Indonesian hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals near Jabalia, told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme that Israeli troops were stationed outside its gates and that there was constant gunfire in the vicinity.
“This has created an atmosphere of fear and confusion among patients and medical staff,” Dr Marwan al-Sultan said. “We are also facing a critical shortage of fuel, medical supplies, personnel, food, and water.”
“Additionally, ongoing power outages force the hospital to rely on alternative energy sources that last only eight to 10 hours. During the remaining time, the medical staff cannot operate the electric generators, which endangers patients who require oxygen.”
Dr Sultan also denied reports that there had been a fire at the hospital on Monday, saying there had been a blaze inside an adjacent school, near several generators.
The Israeli military has said it is ensuring hospitals remain operational during the offensive.
It has also said that more than 230 lorries carrying food, water, medical supplies and shelters have been transferred to northern Gaza via the Erez West crossing since last week, following a two-week period when the UN said there were no deliveries.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 42,710 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
