The Israeli military warned on Friday it would operate with “unprecedented force” in Gaza City, telling residents to flee southwards as it pressed its ground offensive on the territory’s largest urban center, as strikes and operations continued across the Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces said troops expanded their operations in Gaza City, and in the past day, killed more than 10 operatives and directed strikes on terror infrastructure.
In the Strip’s south, the military said troops operating in Khan Younis and Rafah killed several terror operatives and demolished dozens of sites used by Hamas.
Local Hamas-run health authorities said at least 22 people were killed across the Strip in Israeli strikes. The casualty figures could not be independently verified and did not differentiate between fighters and civilians.
As troops pushed the Gaza City ground offensive, the military announced the as-planned closure of the Salah al-Din Road, a temporary second evacuation route for residents of Gaza City to the southern Strip. Palestinians evacuating Gaza City can now only do so via the Rashid coastal road.
“The IDF will continue to act with great and unprecedented force against Hamas and the other terror organizations,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman said. “For your safety, take the opportunity and join the hundreds of thousands of [Gaza] City residents who have moved south to the humanitarian area, and do not allow Hamas to exploit you as human shields.”
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
The military on Friday said it estimated 480,000 Gaza City residents have fled since late August.
Around one million Palestinians were estimated to be residing in Gaza City before the IDF launched a major offensive against Hamas in the area.
Ahead of the offensive, the IDF ordered Palestinians in all areas of Gaza City to evacuate immediately to an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Strip’s south.
This picture taken from a position at Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli strikes on September 19, 2025 (Jack GUEZ / AFP)
In western Gaza City on Friday, Sami Baroud described “relentless and intense shelling.”
“Our life has become nothing but explosions and danger,” the 35-year-old told AFP by telephone.
“We have lost everything — our lives, our future, our sense of safety. How can I evacuate when I can’t even afford transportation?”
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 15 kilometers [nine miles], we were crawling from exhaustion,” she said.
“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 with her family on Al-Rashid Street for two nights 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.
People dismantle their tent as Palestinians from Gaza City move southwards with their belongings, on the coastal road near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, on September 19, 2025 (Eyad BABA / AFP)
Gunmen steal trucks carrying baby formula
Amid the growing humanitarian crisis in the Strip, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said Hamas gunmen “brazenly robbed” four UNICEF aid trucks carrying baby formula in Gaza City on Thursday.
“The trucks were commandeered right outside the UNICEF compound in Gaza City, a direct assault on humanitarian work,” COGAT said in a statement.
UNICEF put out their own statement saying “armed individuals” commandeered four aid trucks outside their compound at gunpoint, and diverted the contents elsewhere, before releasing the drivers and the trucks.
“This theft has denied at least 2,700 severely and acutely malnourished children of life-saving RUTF (Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food) — vital supplies at a time when famine has been declared in the north of Gaza and the ongoing military operation is creating further displacement and adding to the devastating impact on children,” UNICEF said.
Illustrative: A Palestinian man stands next to a truck carrying UNICEF aid supplies outside a shopping mall in Gaza City on May 12, 2025 (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
COGAT said that “while Israel allows the entry of vital baby food into Gaza, Hamas steals it to profit from the public.”
“This formula was meant to be distributed for free by UNICEF. Once again, Hamas proves that it has no interest in the well-being of the people, only in its own terror motives,” COGAT added.
Meanwhile, the military said the deputy intelligence chief in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion was killed in a recent airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to the IDF, the intelligence officer Mahmoud Abu al-Khir took part in advancing attacks against Israel and troops operating in Gaza.
The military said he was targeted in an Israeli Air Force drone strike, and measures were taken to mitigate civilian harm.
Israeli soldiers and equipment seen on the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, September 19, 2025 (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 65,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
The war was triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel. Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of those abducted on that day. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Among the bodies held by Hamas is an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
