KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes attacked a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The attack came as Israel said it would continue its offensive to defeat Hamas’s rulers in the area, despite calls from the United States for a pause in providing aid to desperate civilians.
The rising death toll in Gaza sparked growing outrage in the international community. Tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin took to the streets on Saturday to demand an immediate ceasefire.
Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses suggested by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Instead, it said that the Hamas rulers in the besieged enclave were faced with “the full force” of their troops.
“Everyone in Gaza City is risking their lives,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Large columns of smoke rose as the Israeli military said it had encircled Gaza City, the initial target of its offensive against Hamas. Gaza’s Health Ministry said more than 9,400 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in the nearly month-long war and that number is likely to rise as the attack continues.
Airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding 42, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said.
He said first responders, with support from local residents, were still searching the rubble for dead people or possible survivors.
Arafat Abu Mashaia, who lives in the camp, said the Israeli airstrike leveled several multi-story houses where people displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip were seeking refuge.
“It was a real massacre,” he said early Sunday as he stood on the rubble of destroyed homes. “Everyone here is peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there was resistance (fighters) here.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The camp, a built-up residential area, is in the evacuation zone where the Israeli military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive on northern areas.
Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombings across the Gaza Strip, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and activists everywhere. She accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Critics say Israel’s attacks are often disproportionate given how many women and children have been killed in such attacks.
Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday after talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary ceasefire until all hostages held by Hamas were released.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Arab countries wanted an immediate ceasefire, saying: “The entire region is drowning in a sea of hatred that will shape future generations.”
However, Blinken said, “We now believe that a ceasefire would simply leave Hamas in place to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” when the group launched a widespread attack Israel launched Gaza Strip into the south, triggering war.
He said humanitarian pauses could be crucial to protecting civilians, bringing in aid and getting foreigners out, “while still allowing Israel to achieve its goal of defeating Hamas.”
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that Blinken should “stop the aggression and not have ideas that cannot be implemented.” The spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, who calls himself Abu Obeida, said in a speech that militants had destroyed 24 Israeli vehicles in the past two days, causing casualties.
Egyptian officials said they and Qatar would propose six to 12-hour daily humanitarian pauses to allow the evacuation of aid and the injured. They also called on Israel to release a number of women and elderly prisoners in exchange for hostages, a proposal Israel apparently would not accept. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press on the discussions.
Israel has repeatedly urged northern Gaza’s 1.1 million residents to flee south, and on Saturday it offered residents a three-hour window to do so. However, an Associated Press journalist saw no one coming along the way.
Israel claimed Hamas “exploited” the window to advance south and attack its forces. There was no immediate comment from Hamas on the claim, which could not be verified. Israeli planes dropped leaflets urging people to fly south during another time slot on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m
Parts of the residential areas in the north of the Gaza Strip were razed to the ground by air strikes. U.N. monitors say more than half of northern Gaza’s remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are seeking refuge in U.N.-run facilities. But these shelters have also been repeatedly hit and damaged by deadly Israeli attacks. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it had lost contact with many people in the north.
An Israeli airstrike hit a water well in Tal al-Zatar in northern Gaza overnight, cutting off water supplies to tens of thousands of people in the area, the Hamas-run community in the town of Beit Lahia said in a statement early Sunday.
According to the United Nations, about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70% of the population, have fled their homes. Food, water and fuel for generators that power hospitals and other facilities are running low.
The war has heightened tensions across the region, as Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group continue to battle each other along the border. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, at least two Palestinians were shot dead in an Israeli raid in Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. At least 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war began, mostly in violent protests and shootings during arrest raids.
Thousands of Israelis protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem on Saturday, calling on him to resign and demanding the return of around 240 hostages held by Hamas. Netanyahu refused to accept responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people.
Air raid sirens wailed in southern Israel on Saturday evening as Hamas fired rockets into Ashkelon. Rocket fire continued in the area throughout the conflict, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
More than 3,900 Palestinian children were among the Palestinians killed in Gaza, the Gaza Strip Health Ministry said, without providing a breakdown of the number of civilians and fighters.
The Israeli military said four more soldiers were killed in the ground operation in Gaza, bringing the confirmed death toll to 28.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
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Complete AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war