KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel bombed the Gaza Strip early Friday, hitting areas where Palestinians had been ordered to seek safety and beginning the evacuation of a major Israeli town near the border with Lebanon, the latest sign a possible ground invasion of Gaza that could spark regional unrest.
Amid the fighting, Israel’s defense minister said the country had no plans to maintain control over civilians in Gaza following the war against the militant group Hamas.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s comments to lawmakers marked the first time a senior Israeli official discussed his long-term plans for Gaza. Gallant said Israel expects a war in three phases, starting with air strikes and ground maneuvers. It assumes that pockets of resistance will then be defeated and Israel’s “responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip” will ultimately be abolished.
Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy airstrikes in Khan Youni, a town in the territory’s south, and ambulances carrying men, women and children streamed into the local Nasser hospital. The hospital, the second largest in Gaza, was already overcrowded with patients and people seeking shelter.
The Israeli military said it struck more than 100 targets across the Gaza Strip linked to the area’s Hamas rulers, including a tunnel and weapons depots.
On Thursday, Gallant ordered ground troops to prepare to see Gaza “from the inside,” hinting at a ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas militants in Gaza nearly two weeks after their bloody invasion of Israel. Officials have not provided a timeline for such an operation.
More than a million people have been displaced in Gaza, with many following Israel’s orders to evacuate the northern part of the isolated enclave on the Mediterranean coast. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week described areas in southern Gaza as “safe zones,” Israeli military spokesman Nir Dinar said Friday: “There are no safe zones.”
U.N. officials said that amid bombings across the Gaza Strip, some Palestinians who had fled the north appeared to be returning.
“The attacks, coupled with extremely difficult living conditions in the south, appear to have prompted some to return to the north, despite ongoing heavy bombing there,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office.
Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals are rationing dwindling medical supplies and fuel for generators as authorities prepare logistics for a much-needed aid shipment from Egypt. Doctors in darkened wards across the Gaza Strip performed surgeries by cellphone light and treated infected wounds with vinegar.
The agreement to bring aid into Gaza through the territory’s only non-Israeli-controlled access point remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians and that it would “thwart” any diversions by Hamas. More than 200 trucks and around 3,000 tons of aid were deployed at or near the border crossing in Rafah, a city between northern Egypt and southern Gaza.
Work to repair the airstrike-damaged border road began on Friday, with trucks unloading gravel and bulldozers and other road repair equipment filling large craters.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the border crossing on Friday and called for aid to be transported quickly to Gaza. He called this “the difference between life and death.”
Israel has evacuated its own communities near Gaza and Lebanon and placed residents in hotels elsewhere in the country. The Defense Ministry on Friday announced evacuation plans for Kiryat Shmona, a town of more than 20,000 people near the Lebanese border. According to the Israel Health Service, three Israelis, including a five-year-old girl, were injured in a rocket attack there on Thursday.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has a huge arsenal of long-range missiles, has fought almost daily firefights with Israel along the border and suggested it could join the war if Israel tries to destroy Hamas. Israel’s arch-enemy Iran supports both armed groups.
The violence in Gaza has also sparked protests across the region, including in US-allied Arab countries. These demonstrations could flare up again on Friday after weekly Muslim prayers.
In an Oval Office address on Thursday, US President Joe Biden reiterated his unwavering support for Israel’s security while saying the world cannot ignore “the humanity of innocent Palestinians” in Gaza.
A few hours after returning to Washington from an urgent visit to Israel, Biden linked the current war in Gaza to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin “both want to completely destroy a neighboring democracy.” “
Biden said he would send an “urgent budget request” to Congress on Friday to cover emergency military aid to both Israel and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, an unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment sent to Congress estimated the death toll from an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City this week at the “low end” of 100 to 300 deaths. The death toll “continues to reflect a staggering loss of life,” said the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It said intelligence officials were still evaluating the evidence and their estimate of the number of victims could change.
The report reiterated earlier assessments by U.S. officials that the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital was not caused by an Israeli airstrike, as the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza initially reported. Israel has provided video, audio and other evidence that it says shows the explosion was caused by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.
The AP has not independently verified any of the allegations or evidence presented by the parties.
An Israeli airstrike late Thursday hit a Greek Orthodox church housing displaced Palestinians near the hospital. The Israeli military said it attacked a Hamas command and control center nearby, damaging a church wall. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 16 Palestinian Christians were killed.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemned the attack and said it would “not abandon its religious and humanitarian duty to provide assistance.”
The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the devastating Hamas attack on October 7th.
Palestinian militants have now launched relentless rocket attacks on Israel – more than 6,900, according to Israel – and tensions have increased in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, thirteen Palestinians, including five minors, were killed on Thursday in a battle with Israeli troops in which Israel ordered an airstrike. An Israeli border police officer was killed in the fighting, Israel said.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 4,137 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, most of them women, children and older adults. According to authorities, over 13,000 people were injured and another 1,300 are believed to have been buried under rubble.
More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, mostly civilians killed during Hamas’ deadly incursion. About 200 others were kidnapped. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 prisoners.
In a fiery speech on Thursday, Defense Secretary Gallant called on Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border to be “ready” for the invasion. Israel has called up around 360,000 reserve soldiers and massed tens of thousands of troops along the Gaza border.
“Whoever sees Gaza from a distance now will see it from within,” he said. “It could take a week, a month, two months before we destroy them,” he added, referring to Hamas.
With supplies running low due to the full Israeli siege, some Gazans are reduced to eating just one meal a day and drinking dirty water.
Egypt and Israel were still negotiating the import of fuel for hospitals. Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Hamas had stolen fuel from UN facilities and Israel demanded assurances that it would not happen again.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has asked gas stations to supply fuel to hospitals, and a UN agency also donated some of its final fuel. Gaza’s only power plant was shut down last week, leaving Palestinians reliant on generators and no fuel has been used since the war began.
The agency’s donation to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the region’s largest, would “keep us alive for a few more hours,” said Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director.
___
Krauss reported from Jerusalem and Kullab from Baghdad. Associated Press journalists Amy Teibel and Isabel Debre in Jerusalem; Samy Magdy and Jack Jeffrey in Cairo; Matthew Lee and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Ashraf Sweilam in el-Arish, Egypt, contributed to this report.