MOSUL, Iraq — Stalls and carts have sprung up outside the bombed-out buildings in eastern Mosul, selling meat, vegetables, cigarettes, and cellphones to the thousands of civilians still living in neighborhoods where Iraq’s military has driven out the Islamic State group.
As the grinding military operation enters its fourth month, about a third of the city is under government control. While more than 100,000 people have fled, many remain, despite no electricity or running water.
Zaid Khaled sells frozen chicken from a stall in the Zahour neighborhood. Every morning, he takes a bus to the easternmost edge of Mosul to buy the poultry in a market.
Because there’s no power, he must sell his whole supply each day or lose money. ‘‘Slowly, as people are able to go back to work, life will return to normal, step by step,’’ he said.
On the edge of the neighborhood, hundreds of people cross a makeshift bridge to buy food and water or reach medical aid.
Isam Fathi Younis lives just a few blocks from the front line. He wheeled his elderly mother across the bridge Thursday in search of a doctor after she began to have trouble breathing.
His family waited in their home for days before fighting subsided enough to venture out on the streets, he said.
On Tuesday, Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati said the whole city could be recaptured from ISIS in another three months, or less. When the operation began in October, Iraqi leaders predicted they would retake the city before 2017 began, but progress has been slow amid fierce counterattacks.
Although buses, taxis, and private cars have begun to clog the streets, military vehicles wind through, a reminder the battle is not far away. A group of soldiers carried a metal chair — a seemingly ordinary object until a closer look revealed that cuff-like restraints had been welded to its arms and legs. The soldiers said they recovered it from an ISIS prison.
‘‘They used this for torture,’’ said special forces Colonel Ali Kenani. ‘‘Finding things like this in Mosul is normal.’’
Shoppers and merchants said the signs of life were precarious: Markets like this one still get hit by mortar rounds, and the entire city is without essential government services.
Khaled, the young man selling chicken, said that three days ago, a shell landed a block from where he was standing and killed three people.
The military enforces a strict curfew at sundown. The uncertain security situation and limited access to food and water in Mosul still forces thousands of people to flee each week.
Hundreds were massed Thursday in far eastern Mosul, undergoing a strict screening before being shuttled to nearby displacement camps.
Anwar Ali Hussein initially fled to a nearby neighborhood after airstrikes and mortar rounds began hitting outside her home. She tried to wait out the fighting, but the few safe districts quickly filled up.
‘‘In each house, it was 20 people or more,’’ she said, ‘‘and there was never enough food. Only people with lots of money can afford to buy from the markets inside Mosul now.’’
