AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Gaza. Israel’s military has issued new evacuation orders for neighborhoods of Gaza City as Israeli ground forces push deeper into the Gaza Strip’s largest urban area. Israeli attacks have killed over 30 Palestinians since dawn, 11 of them civilians seeking food, including two children. Many Palestinians continue to resist Israel’s forced displacement, moving from one place to another within Gaza City rather than leaving entirely.

As Israel escalates its bombardment of Gaza City, we’re joined now by Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud, who has just left Gaza City.

Hani, welcome to Democracy Now! You are still, of course, in Gaza. Can you talk about why you left Gaza City?

HANI MAHMOUD: Amy, thank you so much for having me on this particularly amazing show. I’m a fan of Democracy Now! And just a quick reminder: We met about 10 years ago at Montana State University, and I had a copy of your book [Standing Up to the] Madness, and you signed it for me. Very, very amazing moment to meet with you and listen to your lecture at that time.

So, moving to your question, we did not leave Gaza City until it was extremely difficult for us to stay around the office premises that we were operating from. Israeli ongoing bombardment has reached as far as the heart of Gaza City, where the majority of displaced families were sheltering after they were forcibly pushed out of their homes from the eastern part of the city, from the northern western, the northern central and from the southern west — southern central and the southern western part of Gaza City, in a form that resembled sandwiching people in the middle and keep pushing them toward the western part of the city.

The day we decided to leave, a vehicle carrying displaced families just passed through the office premises we were staying in, was struck three times by the Israeli military. It panicked the whole area. The explosion just struck the entire neighborhood, caused a state of panic and fear. And quite honestly, that was very threatening to everyone in that particular neighborhood, where people start to moving one street away, one neighborhood away from that particular area.

And that’s only the tip of the — of everything that we experienced over the past month. That was just one example of the ongoing, unfolding horror that across Gaza city people experience on daily basis, from targeted residential towers into displacement sites, into destroying public facilities and infrastructure. Critical infrastructures, hospitals and other means of lives, across Gaza City have been completely destroyed, to the point people started to feel that there is no point of staying there as long as there are none of these elements existing to support their existence in that area, start moving either one street away, one neighborhood away, or simply take the coastal road in search of safety in central and southern part of Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: Hani, you are a face that is known around the world, of Al Jazeera English, as you’ve been reporting for the last years. As you move outside of Gaza City right now, can you talk about — well, I mean, Gaza City now, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced south. A million people live there. What are they telling you as they pass you moving south?

HANI MAHMOUD: Well, Amy, let me start with this. People feel now it’s a permanent state of displacement. They have been on this constant sense of a state of displacement for the past 23 months, from one place to other. And I’m not exaggerating when to say that, literally, people have been herded from one area to another. And the majority of them are pushed into central and southern part of the Strip. The area itself has never been prepared, has never been designed to absorb so many people at once here. We’re talking about, not just double or triple, quadruple the number of people who are residing in central and southern part of the Strip.

Now, apart from the fact that major part of this area is not safe at all, over the course of the past week we’ve seen, on daily basis, displaced families, within their arrival, just hours of their arrivals to the areas where they’re sheltering, they’ve been attacked by the drone strikes, and they were killed here. So, this is not safe for them. People are being basically told, “In order to avoid being bombed in Gaza, you need to move south.” And as soon as they move south, they’re getting bombed, and they are chased by the drones, by the quadcopter, by the fighter jets, that each explosions technically not just destroy an entire neighborhood, but pushes people into further internal displacement.

When it comes to people here, it’s just the exhaustion, the trauma, the — again, the constant sense of permanently displaced, the uncertainty that you will ever see your home back in Gaza ever again, the fact that every displacement carries its unique burden. This time is the hardest time, because eight months ago I was at the same exact spot here reporting about the excitement and the happiness on people’s faces as they returned to their homes in Gaza in the northern part of the Strip. They took the very road here. This road, at some point, represented hope and represented the slow, quiet back to normal life, sort of, now has become a trail of exhaustion, a trail of ongoing, unfolding trauma here.

The lack of basic necessities, we talk about still. Gaza is going through a famine. Food is not available at that amount that will — that is sufficient enough to respond to the greater challenges created by months of devastation, destruction and forced dehydration and starvation. Whatever you see in the market now does not address the deepening humanitarian crisis. Sugary stuff and the stuff that are not necessarily important for survival are flooding the market. But when we’re talking about sources for protein, fresh produce, like vegetables, these are not available. And if they are not — if they are available, they are available at a very small quantity, at a skyrocketing price that is beyond anyone’s financial capabilities now. People have not been on a regular payroll. You know, public sector are not getting paid regularly. Private sectors have been completely destroyed. So people are left to food stamps and food coupons, whatever parcels they have been able to collect.

But the worst of this is — over the past three days, we did field reports. We reached to areas that are considered for local residents of central and southern part of the Gaza Strip as remote area, are now filled with displaced families. What’s really worrying about these areas, they are far from the city, far from hospitals and clinics and medical points. They’re far from water sources or food supplies. So, you have, other than that they are displaced and traumatized, they end up walking for two kilometers, three kilometers in order to get water, in order to get food, and go back to the displacement site. And this is done on a daily basis.

Now, the danger with this, it exposes people to aerial surveillance, that is basically flooding the area here. The skies of central areas clouded — or, are clouded with the drones and fighter jets and already causing mayhem, causing panic and causing a greater level of fear, because this place is not even safe for them to stay in. We ran to a family member here who was waiting for a couple days for remaining family members to arrive. And as soon as they arrived, just within three hours, 11 members of families who arrived to central area were killed in a single strike. And imagine: How is this playing itself out? How is it going with people who want to leave from Gaza into safety? But to hear about this, of course, they’re not going to be encouraged to take the risk, because Gaza is devastated and destroyed, and now coming to central area is not different. It’s also destroyed and devastated and under many of these attacks, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Hani Mahmoud, last month, protests erupted worldwide demanding accountability and justice following Israel’s targeted assassination of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with four of his colleagues and another journalist outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. This is a tribute you and your colleagues at Al Jazeera made for the slain journalists.

MOATH AL-KAHLOUT: Anas, Mohammed, Momen, Ibrahim and Mohammed Noufal, thank you for everything you have done for us.

HANI MAHMOUD: They stood in the rubble. They walked through the dust. They bore witness to much of the horror, the pain, as well as the resilience of Gazans across the Gaza Strip.

TAREQ ABU AZZOUM: Anas became the eyes of Gaza and the voice of its suffering. His reporting was not just journalism. It was an act of defiance, a refusal to let the world look away.

HIND KHOUDARY: He always used to tell us when we used to take a photo, “Don’t show them I’m short.” People get surprised every time they see him, because he’s so very tiny.

MOATH AL-KAHLOUT: Mohammed Qreiqeh, I will never forget that you wanted to learn English in order to spread the news to the Western communities. Ibrahim and Mohammed Noufal, who wanted to get married once the war is over.

HANI MAHMOUD: Just a few hours before the attack, we chatted a bit. We giggled. We even talked about the plans that we wanted to do right after the genocide is over.

TAREQ ABU AZZOUM: The truth will not be buried. As Anas always says, our coverage will continue.

HANI MAHMOUD: To our fallen colleagues, your bravery will inspire a generation of journalists to come.

MOATH AL-KAHLOUT: Thank you, guys, for everything you have done for us. Thank you for the news coverage. Thank you for dedicating your life to tell us the truth.

HIND KHOUDARY: I wish they never left. And I wish Palestinian journalists were not the target.

HANI MAHMOUD: To all of them, rest in power. We will never forget you.

AMY GOODMAN: An amazing video for that horrific moment, Anas al-Sharif, the well-known Al Jazeera correspondent, killed with three other Al Jazeera colleagues, August 11th, in that strike on Al-Shifa: Mohammed Qreiqeh, also a correspondent, killed alongside Anas, and you have Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, cameraman killed in that same strike. Then we go back in time, Mohammed Salama, cameraman for Al Jazeera, killed in a double-tap Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital, August, 25th; killings in 2024, Ismail al-Ghoul, the Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent, killed along with Rami al-Rifi, July 31st, 2024, died in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle while covering the killing of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City; Hamza Dahdouh. If you can talk about your colleagues and friends, and what this means? Honestly, every day, as I turn on Al Jazeera and see you at the top of the newscast, I worry the next day if I will see you there.

HANI MAHMOUD: You know, there is a lot of risk involved in what we are doing, and we we recognized this from day one. The Israeli military made it clear that there’s no one safe in Gaza City. And I think seeing the acts on the ground, they literally mean that there is no one safe. And it’s not just about the journalists. We look at the doctors, for example, medical staff being targeted and deliberately killed by the Israeli military. Teachers, engineers, what at some point represented the elite educational, intellectual class across the Gaza Strip, including university presidents and deans of colleges, they were all on the list of the Israeli military and were killed systematically. So, when we talk about journalists only, it’s just one element of so many, that is likely in the future to affect how this society is going to progress socially, economically, let alone intellectually, with this large number of people being systematically targeted and killed.

When it comes to our colleagues, everyone, as I said, everyone, every one of them, did their job to the best of their abilities, telling the truth as it is. And by the way, here on the ground, we report everything that we see, and we report everything that comes in front of our eyes. Our cameras are always with us, and we report it as raw as it is, because there is no room here to change anything. There is no room here to make anything more appealing or to drive sympathy. This is not about the driving sympathy. It’s about driving change, because what’s going on here is beyond anyone’s imagination. It’s brutal. It’s aggressive.

And the fact that it’s been happening for the past 23 months nonstop, just put a huge question mark: Why? Why is it going for so long, and no one is doing anything to stop it? That’s what makes it very difficult. And this is, quite honestly, what keeps us doing what we’re doing, because we believe the world deserves to learn the truth, to learn about what’s going on on a daily basis, the deliberate destruction of hospitals, of schools, of residential clusters, the mass killing, mass wholesale killing of children. We have — in couple years from now, we will have a whole generation of amputees, of new crippled young generation, because of the large number of children who were amputated inside hospitals because of the kind of bombs used by the Israeli military.

Now, telling these stories is important. The world needs to understand that a singular event — that lasted for how long? Three, couple of, three hours — was followed by 23 months of brutality that have destroyed everything across the Gaza Strip. And this is not a call that what happened was OK. We’re not saying this. But we’re saying what we’re looking at for 23 months, this aggression, continues to unfold in the most barbaric way. I’ve seen bombs falling nonstop on tent sites in al-Mawasi, an area that’s supposed to be safe for people. I’ve seen it targeting schools while people were sheltering inside. I’ve seen it targeting marketplace while at rush hour, where they are overcrowded with people trying to buy food. So, we’ve seen death in all forms and all shapes here across the Strip.

And standing here at this moment, is it safe? No, it’s not safe at all. I mean, there is no guarantee that — anything could happen here. Any bad thing could happen, whether you are here in the street, in an office, inside your home, because, again, this is very consistent with what the Israeli officials made it clear from the opening weeks of this genocide. They said there is no one safe here. Dehumanization, the demonization of Palestinians.

And it looks like they put journalists at the top of the list, and they track them one by one. And if not — if not them, it’s their families. We’ve seen journalists’ families, whole entire families, being wiped off the civil registry, simply because they were telling the truth. They were documenting what was going on on the ground. This is Israel’s tactics to suppress any voice of the criticism on the ground, to maintain that vision worldwide that they are fighting barbarians, they’re fighting terror, they’re fighting uncivilized population.

But guess what: This has changed. And I hope it will continue to change, because what we’re seeing on a daily basis — what you see on the screen is only a tiny bit of what we’re able to show you. On the ground, it’s even worse. I have nights that I never slept at all, just visualizing everything that we cover throughout these days, the scenes of children soaked in blood inside hospitals, or the collapsing fathers, the crying mothers over the bodies of her whole entire family, the malnourished, the emaciated bodies of children inside the hospital. All these are haunting us throughout the night. And it’s not the only thing that keeps us awake. The drones in the background, that keeps buzzing and grinding down on the mental and the psychological well-being of everyone here, keeps us awake throughout the night, alert, because we are hypervigilant right now, because we don’t know when the next attack is going to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Hani, as we wrap up, what gives you the courage to keep reporting, to staying there in Gaza, with so many of your colleagues killed, hundreds of them? And also, your thoughts on Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, not allowing in international journalists, as hundreds of your colleagues, Palestinian colleagues in Gaza, are killed?

HANI MAHMOUD: And I don’t see him allowing any international journalists coming to Gaza. I know, about a month ago, in a press conference, he gathered some 20 journalists, who waited for him to finish. No one had the courage to ask any of the serious questions, to question the credibility of the information, to question the policies, the acts on the ground here. They basically — he basically dominated the scene and pushed for the narrative that we have been hearing for the past 23 months over what’s going on.

What we’re seeing is a genocide, by all means. I mean, anyone with tiny knowledge of what’s going on would understand that what’s going on here on the ground is a genocide. When you systematically destroy the whole entire society, you either look at one thing, emptying the land, or by ways of population thinning or population transfer. That includes, of course, the mass killing of everyone.

But the moment we see international journalists coming in here, things will change. I just hope, at this point now, wherever they are, they would raise their voices, they will demand. It’s their right to be in this area. I mean, forget about the fact that the Israeli military is worried about their safety. What about the safety of everyone here, the safety of the civilian population here?

The other day, I was listening to an Israeli reservist who was making some math about the number of people killed here. And to my surprise, it was more than what the Health Ministry here estimated. We’re talking about close to 60,000 Palestinians have been killed. And this is how his math played out. He said, for every Hamas member, there were two civilians. And he added, he continued to say, like 30,000 Hamas members were killed, plus the — I mean, if you double that, that’s 60,000 Palestinians killed. And that’s by their own math. It’s more than what we have been able to count here and document, apart from those who are under the rubble, who are counted by the thousands, literally by the thousands. At the opening weeks of the war, the Israeli military carpet-bombed the entire northern part of the Strip. I remember this area vividly with its high-rise buildings, many of the residential buildings and towers in that area completely wiped out. During the January ceasefire, we covered extensively from the northern part of the Strip, and I walked for hours just looking for one standing building, and I could not find a single one, all flattened completely. And we were told by surviving family members, many were still buried under the rubble.

So, until we see more of this on the screen, I think things will continue to get worse. And it doesn’t matter how many meetings are running at the Security Council or the United Nations or elsewhere. Without any meaningful, practical steps on the ground, we are on our way to annihilation, basically, if not from the bombs, it’s from the lack of food, the lack of basic supplies, the lack of water. It’s a harsh reality, but it is what it is.

AMY GOODMAN: Hani Mahmoud, Al Jazeera correspondent based in Gaza, speaking to us just outside Gaza City. Thank you so much, and be safe.

Coming up, investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein on Trump’s war on the left following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and this week’s deadly shooting at an immigration jail in Dallas that killed one migrant, leaving two critically injured. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Hi-Fly” by the late, legendary pianist and composer Randy Weston.