Israeli forces were operating in the heart of southern Gaza’s largest city Khan Younis for the first time, its military said yesterday evening.
Soldiers had begun “targeted raids” in central Khan Younis, which the statement identified as a symbol of Hamas’ military and administrative rule.
Israeli warplanes also bombed targets across the densely populated coastal strip in one of the heaviest phases of the war in the two months since Israel began its military campaign following a deadly cross-border Hamas assault.
Hamas’ armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said combat was fierce. Residents said Israeli bombing intensified overnight, killing and wounding civilians, and that tanks were battling Palestinian militants north and east of Khan Younis.
As Israel broadened its ground onslaught after largely taking control of north Gaza last month, Palestinian medics said hospitals were overflowing with dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies were running out.
Hundreds of thousands of people made homeless in the north were desperately seeking shelter in the diminishing number of places in the south designated as safe areas by Israel.
Gazans say there are no truly safe places left, with remaining towns and shelters swamped by displaced people, and Israel bombing areas where it is telling people to go.
“Israel is now pushing us towards Rafah and then they will invade there,” another displaced person who gave her name as Zinaib said.
The UN humanitarian office said in a report yesterday that most of the homeless people in Rafah were sleeping rough due to a lack of tents although the UN had managed to distribute a few hundred.
Rafah is about 13km south of embattled Khan Younis, abutting the frontier with Egypt. The UN report said that while some aid had entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, distribution had been hampered by a shortage of trucks and staff who could not reach Rafah because of the surge in hostilities since a week-long truce collapsed on December 1.
Figures relayed by Gaza’s Health Ministry put the death toll in Gaza since then at 16,015, including 43 reported by one hospital on Tuesday and 73 by another yesterday.
Israel said yesterday 85 of its soldiers had been killed since its armoured forces invaded Gaza five weeks ago.
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief said the situation was “apocalyptic” with the risk that serious rights violations were being committed by both sides.
Leaders of the Group of Seven nations including Israel’s close ally the US called for further humanitarian truces “to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and minimise civilian casualties”.
Armoured Israeli forces have thrust southward and surrounded Khan Younis since the truce unravelled.
Some Palestinians described lucky escapes after their homes were destroyed in an overnight air strike on the Al Amal neighbourhood of Khan Younis.
“I swear we don’t even know how we made it out alive,” said Hamdi Tanira, describing an attack on a house where he said he and about 30 others were sleeping, including 20 children.
Another survivor Amal Mehdi said: “All of a sudden, the bombardment hit us, you wouldn’t know where it came from, it was a miracle that we were pulled from under the rubble.”
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Hamas fighters were using improvised explosive devices and anti-personnel mines in a shift of tactics as the fighting transitioned to close ground combat.
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