- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- The health authorities in Gaza speak of 18,000 deaths
- The WHO believes that improving the health situation is almost impossible
- Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on the Lebanese border is increasing
GAZA/CAIRO, Dec 10 (Portal) – Israeli tanks fought their way into the heart of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip capital on Sunday in a major new push, health authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip of around 18,000 Palestinians said was killed in the war.
Residents said tanks had reached the main north-south road right through Khan Younis after intense fighting overnight that slowed the Israeli advance from the east. Warplanes bombed the area west of the attack area.
The air rumbled with the constant sound of explosions, and thick columns of white smoke rose above the densely populated city filled with people displaced from other parts of the enclave.
As morning broke near a police station in the city center, the constant crackle of machine gun fire could be heard. The streets there were deserted except for an old woman and a girl riding a donkey cart.
“It was one of the most terrible nights, the resistance was very strong, we could hear shots and explosions that didn't stop for hours,” a father of four who was displaced from Gaza City and sought refuge in Khan Younis told Portal . He declined to be named for fear of reprisals.
At the other end of the Gaza Strip, in northern areas where Israel had previously said its forces had largely fulfilled their duties, residents also reported some of the fiercest fighting of the war so far.
“I suspect it is the fiercest fighting we have heard in weeks,” said Nasser, 59, a father of seven who is seeking refuge in Jabaliya after his home was destroyed in Beit Lahiya, another northern area. As he spoke, explosions could be heard. “We will definitely not leave Jabaliya. We will die here as martyrs, or they will leave us alone.”
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, after militants burst over the fence on October 7 and rampaged through Israeli towns, gunning down families in their homes, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
Since then, about 18,000 people have been killed and 49,500 injured in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza health authorities. Thousands more are missing and are believed to be under rubble. The toll no longer includes numbers from northern parts of the enclave, which are beyond the reach of ambulances and where hospitals no longer function.
WHO LIVES?
After weeks of fighting focused in the north, Israel launched its ground offensive in the south this week with an assault on Khan Younis. With fighting now raging across nearly the entire length of the Gaza Strip, international aid groups say the 2.3 million people are left with no place to hide.
The World Health Organization said it was almost impossible to improve the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza, where medical needs have soared and the risk of disease has increased while the health system has been severely reduced.
At the site of a Khan Younis home that was destroyed by bombing overnight, relatives of the dead combed through the rubble in a daze. They pulled the body of a middle-aged man in a yellow T-shirt from under the brickwork.
[1/9]Smoke rises after Israeli attacks, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 10, 2023. Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa ACQUIRES LICENSE RIGHTS
“We said the night prayer and went to sleep, then we woke up and found the house on top of us. 'Who's still alive?!'” said Ahmed Abdel Wahab.
“Three floors above have collapsed and people are lying underneath,” he said. “My mom and dad, my sister and brother, all my cousins.”
The main hospital in Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital, was overrun with dead and wounded. On Sunday there was no more room in the emergency room as more wounded people were brought in, wrapped in blankets and carpets. Mohamed Abu Shihab wept and vowed revenge for his son, who he said was killed by an Israeli sniper.
The Israeli military said it bombed underground tunnel shafts in Khan Younis and attacked a group of Palestinian gunmen who were preparing an ambush, but said nothing about a tank advance.
Hamas said its fighters damaged or destroyed 180 Israeli military vehicles during the fighting, without providing evidence, and said Israel was unable to take back the remaining hostages by force but only through negotiations.
The vast majority of Gazans have now been forced from their homes, with many fleeing multiple times with only the belongings they could carry. Israel says it is doing everything in its power to protect civilians, but even its closest ally, the United States, says it has not kept those promises.
An Israeli siege has disrupted supplies, and the United Nations warned of mass starvation and disease.
Fears of escalation
Fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon sparked by the Gaza conflict intensified on Sunday.
At an international conference in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which served as the main broker for a week-long ceasefire that saw the release of more than 100 hostages, Arab foreign ministers criticized the United States for vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution on Friday had lodged a ceasefire in Gaza that called for humanitarian aid.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the war risks radicalizing an entire generation in the Middle East. Jordan's foreign minister said the Israeli campaign was aimed at driving Palestinians out of Gaza and met the legal definition of genocide, which Israel called egregious.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he would “not give up” his call for a ceasefire.
“I called on the Security Council to apply pressure to avert a humanitarian catastrophe and I reiterated my call for a humanitarian ceasefire,” Guterres said. “Regrettably, the Security Council has failed to do this, but that does not make it any less necessary.”
Israel rejected calls to stop fighting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a briefing of his Cabinet on Sunday that he had told the leaders of France, Germany and other countries: “You cannot, on the one hand, support the elimination of Hamas and, on the other hand, pressure us to end the war, what “This would prevent the elimination of Hamas.”
Reporting by Bassam Masoud and Mohammed Salem in Gaza, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Dan Williams, Ari Rabinovitch, Emily Rose and Henriette Chacar in Jerusalem. Text by Peter Graff and Angus McDowall, editing by Catherine Evans and Nick Macfie
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