Thousands of people broke into aid camps in Gaza to collect flour and basic hygiene products, a UN agency said on Sunday. This is a sign of growing desperation and the collapse of public order three weeks after the start of the war between Israel and the militant Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip.
Tanks and infantry entered Gaza over the weekend as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a “second phase” of the war, three weeks after Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel. The expanding ground offensive came as Israel also attacked the area from the air, land and sea.
The bombardment – described by Gazans as the worst of the war – crippled most communications in the territory late Friday and largely cut off the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people from the rest of the world. Communications were restored across much of the Gaza Strip early Sunday.
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The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had struck over 450 militant targets in the past 24 hours, including Hamas command centers, observation posts and anti-tank missile launch sites. It said additional ground troops had been sent to Gaza overnight.
A U.N. vehicle moves as the Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) says it has moved its central operations center and international staff to the south of the Gaza Strip amid Israeli attacks in Gaza City, October 13, 2023. AHMED ZAKOT / Portal
Thomas White from the Gaza Strip of the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees, known as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the camp collapses were “a worrying sign that civil order is beginning to collapse after three weeks of war.” “The people are scared, frustrated and desperate,” he said.
UNRWA provides essential services to hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Its schools across the territory have been converted into overcrowded shelters for Palestinians displaced by the conflict. According to UNRWA, Israel has allowed only a small amount of aid from Egypt, some of which was stored in one of the warehouses that was broken into.
Juliette Touma, an agency spokeswoman, said the crowd broke into four facilities on Saturday. She said the warehouses did not contain fuel, which has been in extremely short supply since Israel stopped all supplies after the war began.
Meanwhile, residents living near Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza, said Israeli airstrikes hit near the hospital complex overnight and blocked many roads leading there. Israel accuses Hamas of having a secret command post beneath the hospital, without providing much evidence.
Tens of thousands of civilians are seeking refuge in Shifa, where there are also many patients injured in the attacks.
“It is becoming more and more difficult to reach the hospital,” Mahmoud al-Sawah, who is staying at the hospital, said by phone. “It looks like they want to cut off the area.” Another Gaza City resident, Abdallah Sayed, said Israeli bombings in the last two days were “the most intense and fierce” since the war began.
The army recently released computer-generated images purporting to show Hamas facilities in and around Shifa Hospital, as well as interrogations of captured Hamas fighters who may have spoken under duress. Israel has made similar claims before, but has not substantiated them.
Little is known about Hamas’ tunnels and other infrastructure and the claims could not be independently verified. The Hamas government denied the allegations, saying they were used to justify future attacks on the facility.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Ambulance Service said another hospital in Gaza City received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate. It said the airstrikes hit up to 50 meters (yards) from Al-Quds Hospital, where 12,000 people are seeking refuge.
Israel had ordered the hospital’s evacuation more than a week ago, but the country and other medical facilities refused, saying it would mean death for patients on ventilators.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the recent evacuation order or the attacks near Shifa.
Israel says most residents have followed its orders and are fleeing to the southern part of the besieged area, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north, partly because Israel has also bombed targets in so-called safe zones.
An Israeli airstrike hit a two-story house in the southern town of Khan Younis on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, including 10 from one family. According to an Associated Press journalist at the scene, the bodies were taken to nearby Nasser Hospital.
The escalation, meanwhile, has increased domestic pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of around 230 hostages seized in the Oct. 7 rampage, when Hamas militants from Gaza broke through Israel’s defenses and stormed into surrounding towns and cities gunned down civilians and soldiers in a surprise attack.
Desperate family members met with Netanyahu on Saturday and expressed support for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yehia Sinwar, said Palestinian militants were “immediately ready” to release all hostages if Israel released all of the thousands of Palestinians held in its prisons. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, dismissed the offer as “psychological terror.”
Netanyahu said at the nationally televised news conference that Israel was committed to returning all hostages, stressing that the expanded ground operation “will help us in this mission.” He said he couldn’t reveal everything that was being done because of the sensitivity and secrecy of the effort.
“This is the second phase of the war, the objectives of which are clear: to destroy Hamas’s military and state capabilities and bring the hostages home,” he said, answering questions from journalists for the first time since the war began.
Netanyahu also acknowledged that the Oct. 7 “debacle,” in which more than 1,400 people were killed, needed a thorough investigation, adding that “everyone has to answer questions, including me.”
The Israeli military said it would gradually expand its ground operations in the Gaza Strip, without calling it a full-scale invasion. The number of casualties on both sides is expected to rise sharply as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants fight in densely populated residential areas.
Despite the Israeli offensive, Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel, with constant sirens in southern Israel a reminder of the threat.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza rose on Saturday to just over 7,700 people since the start of the war, with 377 deaths reported since the end of Friday. Most of those killed were women and minors, the ministry said.
An estimated 1,700 people remain trapped under the rubble, according to the Health Ministry, which bases its estimates on emergency calls received.
Israel says its attacks target Hamas militants and infrastructure and that the militants operate among civilians, putting them in danger.
More than 1.4 million people across the Gaza Strip have fled their homes, with nearly half crowding into UN schools and shelters, after the Israeli military repeatedly warned that they would be in danger if they remained in northern Gaza .
Gaza’s only power plant was shut down shortly after the war began, and Israel did not allow fuel to enter because Hamas would use it for military purposes.
Hospitals are struggling to keep emergency generators running to run incubators and other life-saving equipment, and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is also trying to keep water pumps and bakeries running to meet basic needs.
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