Heavy battles and bombardment hit Gaza City’s Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, months after Israel declared Hamas’s command structure dismantled in the northern area.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighborhood, where the army said it has fought Palestinian militants both “above and below ground” in tunnels, reports AFP. Months of on-and-off talks toward a Gaza truce and hostage release deal have meanwhile made little progress, with Hamas saying Saturday there was 'nothing new' in a revised plan presented by US mediators.

The Israeli military said ground and air forces had carried out raids on compounds used by militants and “eliminated several terrorists” over the past 24 hours. It also reported clashes in central Gaza and the southern Rafah area, a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the 'intense phase' of the war raging since October 7 was nearing an end.

The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “60 to 80 thousand people were displaced” from Shujaiya since new fighting broke out there on Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders. For those who remain, “our lives have become hell,” said 50-year-old Shujaiya resident Siham Al-Shawa.

She told AFP people were trapped as strikes could happen “anywhere” and “it is difficult to get out of the neighborhood under fire.”
“We do not know where to go to protect ourselves.” Netanyahu said Israeli “forces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip”.

According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, he told his cabinet that “dozens of terrorists are being eliminated every day.”
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Six people were killed in an air strike at dawn targeting a house in Rafah, said medics at Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken.
Artillery shelling also rocked parts of the city, witnesses said.

The Israeli military launched a ground operation in Rafah in early May, leading to the closure of a key aid crossing.
United Nations and other relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.