Israel continued to put pressure on Hamas militants across almost the entire Gaza Strip this Thursday, while Palestinian civilians led by Israeli airmen sought refuge in the south of the enclave.
Israel battled Hamas militants in Gaza’s biggest cities on Thursday and said it struck dozens of targets, leaving Palestinians struggling to survive, a situation the United Nations described as “apocalyptic.”
Gaza residents crowded into neighboring Rafah on the border with Egypt, guided by Israeli leaflets and messages saying they would be safe in the city, but remained fearful after an Israeli attack on a house killed 15 people on Wednesday were killed, health officials in Rafah said.
Israel said on Thursday it had killed several gunmen in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, including two militants who fired from a tunnel a day after Israeli troops entered the heart of the city.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, had previously said the fighting was intense.
Palestinian health authorities said an Israeli airstrike killed four people in a house in Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip overnight, and another strike killed two people in Khan Younis on Thursday morning.
Residents of Gaza City to the north reported nighttime shelling and heavy gunfire in Shejaia, east of the center, and Jabalia refugee camp further north, as well as shelling in another district. , will know.
Also read: Intense fighting in Gaza leaves fewer safe spaces for civilians
Israel said it raided a Hamas compound in Jabalia, killing several gunmen and locating a network of tunnels, a training ground and a weapons depot.
In Khan Younis, Israeli forces have surrounded the home of Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Wednesday.
“His home may not be his castle and he may escape, but it’s only a matter of time before we catch him,” he explained in a video.
Residents of Khan Younis said Israeli tanks had approached Sinwar’s home, but it was not known whether he was there. Israel has said it believes many Hamas leaders and fighters are hiding in underground tunnels.
In one of the most intense phases of the two-month war, Israeli warplanes also bombed targets along the densely populated coastal strip. WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, said late Wednesday that at least 17 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip.
Also read: Guterres warns of danger of ‘collapse’ of Gaza’s humanitarian system and calls for new ceasefire
Qatar-based media network Al Jazeera said an Israeli bomb attack on the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza Strip killed 22 relatives of its Gaza correspondent Moamen Al-Sharafi.
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief said the situation in Gaza was “apocalyptic” and there was a risk that both sides would commit serious rights abuses.
The United Nations humanitarian office said on Wednesday that most homeless people in Rafah, about 13 kilometers south of Khan Younis, were sleeping on the streets due to a lack of tents, although the United Nations had managed to distribute a few hundred.
While some aid from Egypt entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, increased hostilities since the collapse of a week-long ceasefire on December 1 have hampered distribution, the UN report said.
Displaced civilians also fled to the deserted Al Mawasi area on Gaza’s southern Mediterranean coast, which Israel says is safe.
However, refugee organizations say the former Bedouin village lacks shelter, food and other essentials.
Israel began its military campaign to end Hamas rule in Gaza after Hamas militants advanced into southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostage.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 16,240 people in Gaza, 70% of them women and children.
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