RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces bombed Palestinian refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday and ordered residents to evacuate the area, a sign that the army plans to expand its ground offensive to another part of the Gaza Strip. besieged area. Gaza's main telecommunications provider, Paltel, announced another “total disruption” of its services.
The opening of a possible new combat zone shows the long and destructive road that still lies ahead, as Israel vowed to crush Hamas after the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the current war. For weeks, Israeli forces have been engaged in fierce urban fighting in the northern Gaza Strip and the southern city of Khan Younis, pushing Palestinians into smaller parts of the territory in search of refuge.
Despite international pressure for a ceasefire and U.S. calls to limit civilian casualties, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday that the fighting is “far from over.”
Israel's offensive was one of the most devastating military campaigns in modern history. More than 20,600 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have died, according to Gaza's health ministry, which makes no distinction between civilians and combatants in the deaths. On Tuesday afternoon it was said that 240 people had died in the past 24 hours.
“We are deeply concerned by the ongoing shelling of the central Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, which has caused more than 100 Palestinian deaths since Christmas Eve,” the U.N. human rights office said, noting that Israel had ordered some residents to move to the central Gaza Strip .
In response to what has long been perceived as disproportionate criticism from the United Nations, Israel said it would stop issuing automatic visas to UN staff and accused the world body of being “complicit” 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 reported a night of shelling and airstrikes on Tuesday that rocked the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The camps are built-up towns that house Palestinians forced from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war and their descendants. Today they are also filled with people who have fled the north.
“The shelling was very intense,” Radwan Abu Sheitta, a Palestinian teacher, said by telephone from his home in Bureij. “It looks like they are getting closer,” he said of the Israeli troops.
In the afternoon, Israeli forces ordered residents to evacuate a belt of territory spanning the central Gaza Strip, including Bureij, and urged them to move to nearby Deir al Balah. The Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, said its fighters attacked two Israeli tanks east of Burei. His report could not be independently confirmed, but suggested that Israeli forces were moving toward the camp.
REGIONAL IMPACT
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was 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 acted on six of these fronts,” he told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament).
During the war, Iranian-backed militias in the region have increased their attacks in support of Hamas.
On Monday, Iran-backed Iraqi militias used a drone to attack a U.S. base in Erbil, northern Iraq, wounding three U.S. soldiers, one of them seriously, according to U.S. officials. In response, US warplanes struck three locations in Iraq linked to one of the main militias, Kataib Hezbollah, before dawn.
An Israeli strike hit a neighborhood in 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. The Israeli military did not comment.
Hezbollah and Israel exchange rockets, airstrikes and bombings on the Israeli-Lebanese border almost daily. 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 sea lanes.
Expansion of the offensive in GAZA
More than 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million residents were forced to leave their homes. Deir al Balah and Rafah, located in the south of the enclave on the border with Egypt, have been inundated by the arrival of displaced people even as Israel attacks them.
U.N. officials say a quarter of Gaza's population is starving under siege by Israel, which is allowing only a fraction of food, water, fuel, medicine and other aid.
On Tuesday, an attack occurred on a house in Mawasi, a rural area in Khan Younis province that 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 Israel Defense Forces said it would not refrain from operating in safe zones “if activities of terrorist organizations that threaten the security of Israel are detected.”
Last week the UN Security Council called for an immediate acceleration of aid deliveries to Gaza, but there was little sign of change. According to the UN, many areas are isolated by fighting.
After the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 240 hostage, Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas's capabilities in Gaza. Israel intends to release the more than 100 hostages still held captive.
Israel blames Hamas for the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza, pointing out that the militants used crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel also claimed to have killed thousands of fighters without providing evidence.
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 determined the smell was 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.”
To the north, troops are massing in the Daraj Tufah neighborhood of Gaza City, considered one of the last Hamas strongholds in the area, according to reports from Israeli military correspondents receiving information from army commanders.
The army reportedly intends to destroy about 70% of Hamas' infrastructure, leaving the rest for new operations during the lower-intensity phases of the fighting.
Nevertheless, Hamas fighters have shown resilience. The Israeli army announced the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the total number of deaths in the ground offensive to 158.
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Shurafa reported in Deir al Balah in the Gaza Strip and Magdy in Cairo. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.