By Mohamed Majid
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Israeli artillery strikes in the Shejaiya and Tuffah neighborhoods in Gaza City resulted in multiple casualties Thursday, including children and women, after the Israeli army advanced on the area earlier in the day.
Witnesses told Anadolu that the army targeted homes but the exact numbers of casualties have not been disclosed.
Residents, medical teams and civil defense units managed to transport victims to Al-the Ahli Arab Hospital, said witnesses.
But continuous shelling made it difficult for civil defense teams to reach other homes in Shejaiya, they said.
Witnesses also said Israeli drones were firing at anyone moving, further complicating rescue efforts.
Israel's official broadcasting authority said the military had initiated a ground operation in the Shejaiya neighborhood to dismantle what it claimed to be Hamas infrastructure.
Since morning, the neighborhood has faced intense aerial and artillery bombardment, along with a limited ground incursion with military vehicles in eastern Gaza City.
The army later demanded that residents and the displaced evacuate the eastern neighborhoods in Gaza City, including Shejaiya and Tuffah.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
More than 37,700 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 86,400 injured, according to local health authorities.
Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio