Israeli forces have killed at least 50 Palestinians in aerial and ground bombardments across the Gaza Strip and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Hamas-led fighters in the southern city of Rafah, health officials and Hamas’ armed wing say.
Israeli tanks advanced southeast of Rafah, advanced toward the city’s western Yibna district and continued to operate in three eastern suburbs, residents said Thursday.
“The occupation [Israeli forces] is trying to move further west. They are on the edge of Yibna, which is densely populated. They haven’t invaded yet,” one resident told Reuters news agency, asking not to be identified.
“We hear explosions and see black smoke rising from the areas where the army invaded. It was another very difficult night,” he said.
Simultaneous Israeli attacks on the northern and southern ends of Gaza this month provoked a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled their homes and blocked the main access routes to aid, increasing the risk of famine.
The international community, including Israel’s closest ally, the United States, has warned it against launching a ground attack on Rafah without a credible plan to protect civilians. It has been widely criticized for its operations in the city, including by the US, but Israel says it must advance against several battalions of Hamas fighters there.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the main aid agency operating in Gaza, estimated on Monday that more than 800,000 people have fled Rafah since Israel began attacking the city at the beginning of May.
Suze van Meegan, leader of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s emergency response in Gaza, said many civilians were still trapped there.
“The city of Rafah is now made up of three completely different worlds: the east is an archetypal war zone, the middle is a ghost town and the west is a congested mass of people living in deplorable conditions,” she said in a statement.
‘Desperation and hunger will spread’
At the same time, Israeli forces intensified a ground offensive in the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, where the military leveled several residential areas. It also hit the nearby town of Beit Hanoon. Israel previously declared an end to major operations in these areas months ago, but says it had to return to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.
At least 12 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on a store belonging to the welfare ministry east of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported.
Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said two pre-dawn airstrikes killed 26 people, including 15 children, in Gaza City.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said one attack hit a family home, killing 16 people, in the al-Daraj area and another killed 10 people inside a mosque.
A separate Israeli attack on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed eight more people.
A senior security official, Diaa Aldeen Al-Shurafa, was killed in an Israeli strike while visiting residential neighborhoods in Gaza City, the Gaza Interior Ministry said.
Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the supply of water, food, medicine and fuel, forcing the closure of several hospitals in Gaza.
On Thursday, the Health Ministry said there were “minutes” of fuel left to power generators at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, adding that care for 1,300 patients would soon cease.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that “if aid does not start entering Gaza in large quantities, desperation and hunger will spread,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
He highlighted the closure of the Rafah crossing and the limited functionality of the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in southern Gaza as having “choked the flow of vital supplies”. The UN has previously said it can no longer distribute food in southern Gaza due to the danger.
Dujarric said Gaza’s hospitals lack fuel and medicine due to the continued closure of the Rafah crossing. It has been closed since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of the important transport route on May 6.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said three soldiers were killed in fighting on Wednesday, raising the death toll since ground operations began in Gaza on October 20 to 286 soldiers.
More than 35,800 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
