Desperate Palestinians fleeing Israel’s expanding ground offensive crowded into a shrinking area of the Gaza Strip as the war between Israel and Hamas entered its third month on Friday.
The United Nations warned that its aid operation is “shattered” because nowhere in the besieged enclave is safe.
Israel’s ferocious military attack on Gaza, a tiny and densely populated territory, has caused numerous civilian casualties and massive displacement, causing international alarm.
The Israeli military said on Friday that over the past day it had struck some 450 targets in the Gaza Strip by air, sea and land, indicating the continued intensity of Israel’s campaign.
Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used rarely exercised power to warn the Security Council of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe,” and Arab and Islamic nations called for a vote Friday on a draft Council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cessation. fire.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, is likely to block any UN effort to stop the fighting that was sparked by the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel. Still, American concern about the devastation was growing.
Palestinians evacuate an injured woman following Israeli airstrikes in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on December 7, 2023. AP
Several days ago, U.S. officials told Israel, ahead of the expansion of its ground offensive into southern Gaza, that it should limit civilian deaths and displacement, saying too many Palestinians died when it leveled much of Gaza City and the north. .
On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a call with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer that casualties remain too high, a senior State Department official said.
Blinken told Dermer that Israel must also do more to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
An Israeli army self-propelled artillery howitzer fires from a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on December 7, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private diplomatic discussion.
Israel insists it must crush the military capabilities of Hamas, which rules Gaza, and remove it from power following the group’s Oct. 7 attack.
In the first stage of the war, Israel’s devastating air and ground campaign focused on the northern half of Gaza, as hundreds of thousands of residents fled south.
An aerial image shows displaced Palestinians who fled Khan Yunis setting up camp near the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt on December 7, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Intense battles have continued in parts of the north in recent days, while troops there detained hundreds of Palestinian men.
In photographs and videos released Thursday, dozens of men are seen sitting in rows on a street in northern Gaza, stripped to their underwear and with their heads bowed as they are guarded by Israeli troops.
The images were the first to show this type of arrests during the war.
Palestinians assess the destruction of their neighborhood in the Maghazi Palestinian refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 7, 2023. ZUMAPRESS.com
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops have detained and interrogated hundreds of people in Gaza suspected of having militant links.
U.N. observers said troops reportedly detained men and 15-year-old boys at a school converted into a shelter in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
Over the past week, Israeli forces expanded their ground offensive into southern Gaza, focusing on Khan Younis, the territory’s second-largest city.
Smoke is seen billowing during the Israeli bombing of Gaza, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas on December 7, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
With the entire Gaza Strip under military attack, tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting have gathered in the border town of Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, and in Muwasi, a nearby area of arid coastline that Israel has declared the area a safe zone.
With shelters stretched far beyond capacity, many people set up tents along the road from Rafah to Muwasi.
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“Humanitarian actors… are reporting extreme conditions of overcrowding and a lack of basic resources in Rafah,” the United Nations humanitarian affairs section said.
The ability of UN aid agencies to receive vital aid supplies had been “significantly affected” in recent days due to trucks and staff being stranded by fighting and telecommunications blackouts, he said.
“We no longer have a humanitarian operation in southern Gaza that can bear that name,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned Thursday. The pace of Israel’s military attack “has made no place safe for civilians in southern Gaza, which had been a cornerstone of the humanitarian plan to protect civilians and thus provide them with aid. But without safe places, that plan is in tatters.”
With the entire Gaza Strip under military attack, Israel designated Muwasi on the territory’s Mediterranean coast as a safe zone for those seeking safety from fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants.
But the UN and aid agencies say it is a poorly planned solution that offers no guarantee of security in territory where civilians have suffered airstrikes, including in other areas where the Israeli military has ordered them to evacuate.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 17,100 people in Gaza (70% of them women and children) and injured more than 46,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which says many others are trapped under the rubble.
The ministry does not differentiate between deaths of civilians and combatants.
Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and took more than 240 hostages.
An estimated 138 hostages remain in Gaza, mostly soldiers and civilians, after 105 were freed during a ceasefire in late November.
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