Israeli forces fought Palestinian militants in Gaza’s two largest cities on Monday, with civilians still sheltering on the front lines even after massive waves of displacement across the besieged territory.
Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it removes Hamas from power, dismantles its military capabilities and returns all hostages still held by Palestinian militants after being captured during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel that started the war.
The United States has provided unwavering diplomatic and military support to the campaign, even as it has urged Israel to minimize civilian casualties and new mass displacement.
The war has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and driven nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes.
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip in front of a morgue in Khan Younis on December 10, 2023. AP
Residents said there was heavy fighting in and around the southern town of Khan Younis, where Israeli ground forces opened a new line of attack last week, and that battles were still being fought in parts of Gaza City and the camp. of Jabaliya refugees in northern Gaza. , where large areas have been reduced to rubble.
“The situation is extremely difficult,” said Hussein al-Sayyed, who is staying with relatives in Khan Younis after fleeing Gaza City early in the war. “I have children and I don’t know where to go. No place is safe.”
He and his three daughters are staying in a three-story house with about 70 other people, most of whom have fled the north, and said they have been rationing food for days. “For many days, I have eaten only one meal a day to save food for the girls. They are still young,” he stated.
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a projectile from southern Israel toward the Gaza Strip, at a position near the Israel-Gaza border on December 10, 2023. AP
Another resident of Khan Younis, Radwa Abu Frayeh, witnessed heavy Israeli attacks around the European Hospital, where the UN humanitarian office says tens of thousands of people have sought refuge. He said a strike hit a home near his on Sunday night.
“The building shook,” he said. “We thought it was the end and we would die.”
FEARS OF PERMANENT DISPLACEMENT
With very little aid allowed, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.
Israeli troops prepare weapons and military vehicles next to the border fence before entering the Gaza Strip on December 10, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Some observers openly fear that Palestinians will be forced to leave Gaza entirely, in a repeat of the mass exodus from what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.
“Public order is expected to completely collapse soon, and an even worse situation could develop, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement to Egypt,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday. at a forum in Qatar, a key intermediary.
Eylon Levy, spokesperson for the Israeli government, described accusations that Israel intends to carry out a mass displacement from Gaza as “scandalous and false.”
Palestinians carry an injured girl after being rescued from under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 1, 2023. AP
But other Israeli officials have discussed such a scenario, raising alarm in Egypt and other friendly Arab countries that refuse to accept refugees.
At the same time, it is unclear when or if Palestinians would be allowed to return to Gaza City and much of the north (where some 1.2 million lived before the war), where entire neighborhoods have been razed.
Fighting in and around Khan Younis threatens to cause similar destruction in the south and has already pushed tens of thousands of people towards the city of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt.
An Israeli soldier loads a projectile into a tank on the northern outskirts of the Gaza Strip. REUTERS
It has also hampered the delivery of humanitarian aid to most of Gaza, putting even more pressure on people to head south.
DIFFICULT CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths, saying it endangers residents by fighting in densely populated areas and placing military infrastructure – including weapons, tunnels and rocket launchers – in or near of civil buildings.
The military said Sunday that troops killed gunmen as they left a clinic and that forces operating in Jabaliya found a truck full of long-range rockets near a school.
Palestinians work among the rubble of buildings that were targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, on November 1, 2023. AP
At a house in Jabaliya, soldiers found a rifle, two rocket-propelled grenade launchers and explosives, he said.
Israel has urged people to flee to what it says are safe areas in the south, but has continued to strike suspected militant targets across the territory.
Associated Press reporters saw nine bodies taken to a local hospital Monday after an airstrike hit a house in Rafah overnight.
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The aid group Doctors Without Borders said people in the south are also getting sick while crowding into crowded shelters or sleeping in tents in open areas.
Nicholas Papachrysostomou, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said “one in two patients” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory infection after prolonged exposure to cold and rain.
“In some shelters, 600 people share a single bathroom. We are already seeing many cases of diarrhea. Children are often the most affected,” she stated.
With the war in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,900, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.
The ministry does not differentiate between deaths of civilians and combatants.
Some 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed during the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas and other militants also captured more than 240 people, including babies, women and the elderly.
More than 100 captives were freed during a week-long ceasefire late last month in exchange for women and minors held in Israeli jails.
Israel says Hamas still holds 117 hostages and the remains of 20 people killed in captivity or during the Oct. 7 attack.
Most of the remaining hostages are soldiers and civilians, and the militants hope to exchange them for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The military says 101 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza.
Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets at Israel, although the vast majority have been intercepted or landed in open areas without causing casualties or damage.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn