Tens of thousands of people are fleeing the northern Gaza Strip as Israel’s invasion continues

On Sunday, Anas Al Kourd, a paramedic at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, drove south with a group including his cousin, whose legs were amputated after being injured in the war, and four children. Their car was the only car in sight. Around them, people held up their hands in a gesture of surrender as they walked, holding small white flags, he said.

As they approached Kuwait Square, a key intersection in Gaza City, they were fired upon, forcing them to withdraw, he said.

Two or three times they tried to move forward, but had to turn around again because of incoming fire. When they finally reached the square, he said, he could see more than 50 Israeli tanks nearby, where an olive grove used to be. He said he was waving a blanket instead of a white flag, while some of his companions waved their red German passports.

Mr Al Kourd had covered about a third of the remaining distance into Gaza’s central zone, crashing over splintered trees and concrete blocks, when he said they were fired on again. He was driving at “crazy speed” to get away, he said, when a rocket or bomb exploded nearby. No one was hit, but an earlier crater in the road sent their car flying, he said.

“I don’t know how we survived,” he said a day later, after reaching the central zone of the Gaza Strip. His account could not be independently confirmed.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it has attacked Hamas across Gaza in response to the group’s attack on October 7, when Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and seized more than 200 hostages. The statement said Israel’s attacks on military targets were carried out under international law, including taking “feasible precautions to limit civilian casualties.”

The Israeli military denied that checkpoints had been placed along the road, claiming that Hamas, not Israel, was impeding passage south.