RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces bombed Palestinian refugee camps in the center of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and gave residents orders to evacuate. This suggests that the military is planning to expand its ground offensive to another part of the besieged area. Gaza's main telecommunications provider announced another “complete suspension” of its services.
A potential new battleground threatens fresh destruction in a war that the Israeli military says will last “many months” as it vows to destroy the ruling Hamas militant group after its Oct. 7 attack. Israeli forces have been involved in heavy urban fighting in the northern Gaza Strip and the southern city of Khan Younis, driving Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas in search of refuge.
The US said Israel's Strategic Affairs Secretary Ron Dermer met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday. Despite U.S. calls for fewer civilian casualties and international pressure for a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the fighting is “far from over.”
Israel's offensive is one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 20,900 Palestinians were killed, two-thirds of them women and children. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. On Tuesday afternoon it was said that 240 people had been killed in the past 24 hours.
“We are deeply concerned by the ongoing bombardment of the central Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve,” the U.N. human rights office said, noting that Israel had ordered some residents to move to the area.
Israel said it would no longer grant automatic visas to UN staff and accused the world body of being “complicit partners” in Hamas's tactics. Government spokesman Eylon Levy said Israel would consider visa applications on a case-by-case basis. This could further limit aid efforts in Gaza.
Residents of the central Gaza Strip described a night of shelling and airstrikes that rocked the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The built-up towns are home to Palestinians expelled from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war, as well as their descendants. The camps are now overcrowded with people who have fled the north.
Palestinians inspect the rubble of an Al Nawasrah family building destroyed in an Israeli attack in Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
“The bombing was very intense,” Radwan Abu Sheitta said by telephone from Bureij.
The Israeli military ordered residents to vacate a belt of territory spanning the central Gaza Strip, including Bureij, and urged them to move to nearby Deir al-Balah. Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said its fighters attacked two Israeli tanks east of Burei. The report could not be independently confirmed but suggested Israeli forces were approaching.
The telecommunications outage announced by Paltel follows similar outages throughout much of the war. NetBlocks, a group that tracks internet outages, confirmed that network connectivity in Gaza has been disrupted again and “will likely result in most residents being offline.”
REGIONAL SPILLOVERS
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel is facing a “multi-arena war” on seven different fronts – Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. “We have already responded and taken action on six of them,” he told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
During the war, Iranian-backed militia groups in the region have increased their attacks in support of Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) wears a protective vest and helmet as he receives a security briefing with commanders and soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 25, 2023. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Handout via AP)
Palestinians carry a body from the rubble of the Al Nawasrah family building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq carried out a drone attack on a U.S. base in Erbil, northern Iraq, on Monday, injuring three American soldiers, one critically, according to U.S. officials. In response, U.S. warplanes struck three sites in Iraq linked to a main militia, Kataib Hezbollah, before dawn.
An Israeli strike struck a quarter of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, killing General Seyed Razi Mousavi, an adviser to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel's military did not comment.
Hezbollah and Israel exchange rockets, air strikes and artillery fire almost daily on the Israeli-Lebanese border. On the Lebanese side, around 150 people were killed, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other groups, but also 17 civilians. On the Israeli side, at least nine soldiers and four civilians were killed.
In the Red Sea, attacks on merchant ships by Yemen's Houthi rebels have disrupted trade and triggered a U.S.-led multinational naval operation to protect shipping lanes.
Expansion of the GAZA offensive
More than 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes. Deir al-Balah and Rafah, to the south on the Egyptian border, have been flooded with displaced people despite Israel bombing them.
An Israeli soldier shows a V sign from an armored personnel carrier (APC) near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel on Monday, December 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
U.N. officials say a quarter of Gaza's population is starving under the Israeli siege, which allows only a fraction of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies. Last week the UN Security Council called for an immediate acceleration of aid deliveries to Gaza, but there was little sign of change.
An attack hit a house on Tuesday in Mawasi, a rural area in Khan Younis province, which Israel has declared a security zone. One woman was killed and at least eight others were injured, according to a cameraman working for The Associated Press at the nearby hospital.
In response, the Israeli military said it would not refrain from operating in safe zones “if it detects activities of terrorist organizations that threaten the security of Israel.”
After the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 others hostage, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas's capabilities in Gaza. Israel wants to free the more than 100 hostages remaining in captivity.
Israel blames Hamas for the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza, citing the militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel also says it has killed thousands of militants without providing evidence.
Palestinians load the bodies of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip onto a truck for burial at the cemetery in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
At the Kerem Shalom border crossing, United Nations and Gaza medical workers received a truck containing about 80 unidentified bodies that had been held by Israeli forces in northern Gaza. They were handed over to local authorities for burial. Medical staff described the smells as unbearable.
“We cannot open this container in a neighborhood where people live,” said Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the Rafah Health Emergency Committee, told the AP. He said the Health and Justice Ministries would examine the bodies for possible “war crimes.”
In the north, troops are concentrated in the Daraj Tufah neighborhood of Gaza City, which is considered one of the last Hamas strongholds in the region, according to reports from Israeli military correspondents briefed by army commanders. The army is also reportedly aiming to destroy an estimated 70% of Hamas' infrastructure.
Hamas fighters have demonstrated resilience. The Israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since the ground offensive began to 161.
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Wafaa Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Samy Magdy from Cairo. Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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