Two days after Israel attempted to kill Hamas negotiators with an airstrike on the Qatari capital of Doha, the Zionist regime has stepped up its genocidal attacks across the Gaza Strip.

Since Tuesday, dozens of Palestinians have been killed amid relentless bombardment, while overcrowding in the southern camps is forcing civilians to return to homes in Gaza City, even as Israeli forces issue evacuation orders and raze residential structures to the ground.

In the last 48 hours, over 70 Palestinians have been killed throughout Gaza, with the death toll climbing amid intense strikes targeting both homes and aid seekers. Gaza’s Health Ministry now reports that war casualties have surpassed 64,000, with one-third of the victims being children.

Humanitarian organizations confirm that civilian infrastructure continues to be systematically destroyed in the Israeli campaign, deepening the crisis for roughly one million displaced Palestinians.

The situation in southern Gaza’s displacement camps has reached a breaking point, with conditions “so desperate that some people who fled Israel’s new offensive on famine-struck Gaza City in recent days are heading back towards the falling bombs,” Reuters reported.

The camps—particularly Mawasi—are massively overcrowded and lack basic resources. Many returnees describe the impossibility of securing shelter or safety in camp facilities. “Travel within Gaza is costly and slow due to destroyed vehicles and roads,” Reuters adds.

UN aid officials estimate roughly 70,000–80,000 Palestinians have left Gaza City in the last three days, but the majority of the city’s estimated one million residents remain. More than 650,000 people who had previously fled returned during the January ceasefire, hoping to recover their homes, even as fresh evacuations began.

Satellite imagery reveals a vast patchwork of tents and ruined buildings populated by displaced civilians determined not to be uprooted again. 

Al Jazeera reported on Thursday about the last 30 minutes inside Mushtaha Tower—a 12-story landmark on Gaza City’s western edge that was demolished by multiple Israeli air strikes. Residents received evacuation orders moments before the bombing began. Hind Khoudary, an Al Jazeera correspondent, described: “Israeli forces struck it with two air raids—the first served as a warning, followed by a second strike from an F-16.”

The building, previously filled with displaced families, was shattered by the explosion, sending shockwaves through adjacent tent camps and causing widespread panic. “The shockwave… caused chaos. Numerous makeshift tents were impacted by the attack, marking a new stage in the Israeli military operation,” Tq Abuzzou, another eyewitness, told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s military analyst Elijah Magnier explained that Israel’s demolition of high-rises aims to sow psychological terror and break civilian morale as a prelude to the final occupation plan.

Reports from the BBC and New York Times document a widespread refusal among Palestinians to abandon Gaza City, despite evacuation orders and purported “humanitarian zones” announced by Israel. Olga Cherevko, UN spokesperson, recounted Gazans’ bitter defiance: “People are just sick and tired of moving… When they did move, they were bombed in those places too.”

Zeitoun resident Alkurdi shared that his home was destroyed, but he has chosen to stay in the west of the city. “The house keeps shaking all day. It keeps moving, swaying left and right like an earthquake,” he said.

In the BBC’s coverage, one Palestinian described the situation as “no place left”—noting that designated “safe zones” are overcrowded, lacking food and water, and subject to constant threats of further attack. Israel estimates tens of thousands have evacuated, but hundreds of thousands face impossible choices: “There is nowhere left to go,” Reuters and BBC reiterate.

Mounting opposition within Jewish communities is evident as prominent rabbis and writers call on Israeli and American Jews to publicly break with the murderous policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, emphasizing its catastrophic impact on both Palestinians and prospects for peace.

A New York Times/Siena poll in early September finds that a majority of New York City’s Jewish voters now support hostages’ release and a Gaza ceasefire, with nearly half expressing greater sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis. This marks a significant shift, as public figures argue that to remain silent is to be complicit in “genocidal” violence.

These indications of growing mass opposition to the Gaza genocide are taking place within an expanding movement internationally against the US-Israel operation. Protests are continuing to be held in New Zealand and 200,000 people demonstrated in London on Saturday.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, US Senators Chris Van Hollen (Democrat from Maryland) and Jeff Merkley (Democrat from Oregon), issued a joint statement that is entitled, “The Netanyahu Government is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is Complicit. The World Must Stop It.”

After visiting the region between August 24 and September 1, the senators state that, “Israel is carrying out collective punishment against Palestinians,” weaponizing food and humanitarian aid to force displacement. Their assessment says the US is enabling Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign through continued support.

However, the Van Hollen and Merkley statement, which comes nearly two years into the mass murder of Palestinians by Israel, continues to claim that the Zionist government “has a right, indeed a duty, to defend its people” and “ensure that there cannot be a repeat” of the events of October 7, 2023, when Palestinians rebelled against the apartheid Gaza police state.

The plans by Israel for the complete occupation of Gaza and forced transfer of Palestinians out of the strip, with the Netanyahu government moving forward with the criminal seizure of Palestine with the backing of US imperialism, are known and can no longer be covered up.

Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved the military operation to capture all of Gaza City—the one part of the strip not militarily controlled by Israel—with a stated deadline for Palestinian evacuation by October 7, 2025, a full two years after the genocide began.

Nearly 90 percent of Gaza now falls under “restricted” or military administration, and recent strikes have “razed entire blocks” of residential neighborhoods. Israeli policy statements openly discuss “systematic destruction” and the use of aid denial to render life unsustainable.

International partnerships, with the participation of the Trump administration, are working out plans for the “voluntary relocation” of Gaza’s population to third countries, including schemes ranging from financial inducements to the construction of new settlements and “Riviera of the Middle East” developments on Gaza’s ruins.

Netanyahu recently declared “there will be no Palestinian state,” moving ahead with expanded settlement plans that would permanently isolate any remaining Palestinian inhabitants. As Israel’s ongoing offensive has unleashed a new stage of violence and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the death toll is mounting, and desperate civilians are either forced into dangerously overcrowded camps or returning to homes under threat of demolition.

The air strike targeting Hamas negotiators in Qatar has exposed the fraud of US and Israeli claims they are seeking a negotiated settlement of the genocide and end to what they refer to as a “war.” The expanding mass condemnation of Israel’s campaign as ethnic cleansing and charges that the US is facilitating these crimes, indicates that the genocide in Gaza is entering a new stage of barbarism.