The group's fighters are expected to make their last stand in the Old City-a densely-populated quarter with narrow, winding alleys.
Nine people, including soldiers and civilians, died in Anbar province in Iraq on Friday after a suicide bomber blew himself up.
"The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the bloody campaign has dragged on as the militants reinforced positions in civilian areas, launched suicide auto and motorbike bombs, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.The area still under IS control is about 2 square kilometers (0.77 square miles), alongside the western bank of the Tigris river which bisects Mosul". "Hundreds of civilians, including children, are being shot". Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.
"Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city in the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during the next few days".
Helicopter gunships were providing air support for the Iraqi ground troops, firing on jihadi emplacements in the Old City. At least 100 civilians reached safety during one 20-minute period on Saturday.
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There was a steady trickle of fleeing families on Saturday, some with injured and malnourished children.
Around 100,000 more remain trapped by the jihadists, who have made human shields a key element in their defence of the Old City, their last redoubt in Iraq's second city.
She was working on a story with her French colleague Stephan Villeneuve, 48, and Iraqi Kurdish reporter Bakhtiyar Addad, 41 when the land mine exploded on Monday, killing Villeneuve and Addad nearly immediately.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said that the "liberation" of the city of Mosul from the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group will be announced in a few days. But the militants would still hold sizable tracts of mostly rural territory in both Iraq and Syria.
The carnage came just over a day after Daesh (ISIS) blew up the mosque where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself "caliph" three years ago, as well as its iconic ancient leaning minaret.
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