The Gaza war appears to be increasingly going in circles. The 300,000 to 350,000 Gaza City residents who returned to their largely bombed-out city after an earlier evacuation were given the go-ahead by the Israeli military again on Wednesday. To leave immediately. Hamas fighters had also returned and the Israeli military wanted to have its hands free to deal with them.

“This is the 12th time we have been expelled,” complained Umm Nimr al-Jamal, one of the affected Palestinians. To AFP“How many more times do we have to put up with this? Thousands of times? Where will we end up?”

Heavy fighting and explosions were already taking place in Gaza City on Thursday, with bodies strewn across the streets. People who had not yet responded to the Israeli evacuation call were trapped in their homes or in makeshift shelters. Rescue services were unable to respond because of the fighting. About 30 people are said to have been killed in the fighting.

Many citizens are deliberately refusing to flee to safer areas again. “We will die, but we will not go south,” said a 30-year-old man. Reuters News Agency. “We have endured famine and bombs for nine months and we are ready to die here as martyrs.” He and his family have also had to move several times.

The Israeli military is also unhappy with the new round of fighting in Gaza City, which it also captured last fall. The generals have repeatedly contacted the government in recent weeks. He urged a ceasefire. With Hamas. They fear that Hamas will continue to return to places captured by the army as long as the Israeli government fails to install a new Palestinian administration. Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular remains opposed to this. He insists that Hamas must first be completely destroyed militarily. According to the generals, this is an illusion.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant Wednesday male And 60% of Hamas fighters were killed or wounded. It is said that most of Hamas units have been neutralized so far. At the same time Israeli media reportedAccording to military sources, Hamas’s vast network of tunnels, hundreds of kilometers long, is still largely intact. Hamas is also said to have managed to repair the destroyed sections in the meantime. “Hamas still has the ability to invade close to the border and even cross it, though not on the scale it had before,” Israel’s N12 TV reported.

Meanwhile, negotiators from the warring parties and mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States are meeting again in the Qatari capital, Doha, for discussions on a possible truce and an exchange of remaining Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

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