This image taken from a place alongside the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel reveals flares launched by Israeli forces above the Gaza Strip amid ongoing battles with the militant group Hamas, on Nov. 17, 2023.
Kenzo Tribouillard | Afp | Getty Pictures
Israeli air strikes on residential blocks in south Gaza killed a minimum of 47 Palestinians on Saturday, medics stated, after Israel once more warned civilians to relocate because it girds for an onslaught towards Hamas within the enclave’s south after subduing the north.
The top of the U.N. Palestinian refugee company (UNRWA) stated on Saturday it had obtained “horrifying” photographs and pictures of scores of individuals killed and wounded in an assault on an UNRWA college within the Israeli-occupied north.
“These assaults can’t turn into commonplace, they need to cease. A humanitarian ceasefire can’t wait any longer,” UNRWA Commissioner-Common Philippe Lazzarini stated on social media platform X. Israel’s navy didn’t instantly remark and Reuters was unable to succeed in Gaza well being officers for remark.
Palestinian officers accused the Israeli military of forcibly evacuating most employees, sufferers and displaced individuals from Gaza’s largest hospital within the north and abandoning them to perilous journeys southwards on foot.
Israeli forces, which seized Al Shifa hospital of their offensive throughout north Gaza earlier this week, saying it hid an underground Hamas command middle, denied the accusation, saying evacuations have been voluntary.
Israel vowed to annihilate the Hamas militant group that controls the tiny, coastal enclave after its Oct. 7 rampage into Israel during which its fighters killed 1,200 individuals and dragged 240 hostages into the enclave, in accordance with Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel has bombed to rubble a lot of Gaza Metropolis — the enclave’s city coronary heart — ordered the depopulation of the northern half of the slender strip and displaced round two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
Gaza well being authorities raised their demise toll on Friday to greater than 12,000, together with 5,000 kids. The United Nations deems these figures credible, although they’re now up to date solely occasionally as warfare devastation has hampered communications.
Air strikes
An Israeli offensive into south Gaza might compel lots of of 1000’s of Palestinians who fled the Israeli storming of Gaza Metropolis within the north to uproot once more, together with residents of Khan Younis, a metropolis of greater than 400,000, compounding a dire humanitarian disaster.
In a single day on Saturday, 26 Palestinians have been killed and 23 wounded by an air strike on two residences in a multi-story block in a busy residential district of Khan Younis, in accordance with well being officers.
Eyad Al-Zaeem informed Reuters he misplaced his aunt, her kids and her grandchildren within the air strike in Khan Younis, and that every one had evacuated from north Gaza on Israeli military orders solely to die the place the military informed them they could possibly be secure.
“All of them have been martyred. That they had nothing to do with the (Hamas) resistance,” stated Zaeem, standing exterior the morgue at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis the place 26 our bodies have been laid out earlier than they have been to be carried by family members to burials.
Just a few km (miles) to the north, six Palestinians have been killed when a home was bombed from the air within the city of Deir Al-Balah, in accordance with well being authorities.
A 3rd Israeli air strike on Saturday afternoon killed 15 Palestinians in a home west of Khan Younis, near a shelter for displaced individuals, witnesses and medics stated.
Israel says Hamas usually conceals fighters and weaponry in residential and different civilian buildings, which Hamas denies.
An Israeli navy assertion stated solely that over the previous 24 hours its air drive hit dozens of Gaza targets together with militants, command facilities, rocket launch websites and munitions factories.
A senior aide to Israel’s prime minister urged Palestinian civilians on Friday to relocate away from Khan Younis as Israeli forces must advance into the town to oust Hamas fighters dug into underground tunnels and bunkers — suggesting an Israeli floor offensive into the south was imminent.
The pending Israeli advance into south Gaza might show extra difficult and deadlier than within the north, nonetheless, with the civilian inhabitants swelled by some 400,000 evacuees and fiercer combating anticipated with militants dug into the Khan Younis area, a senior Israeli supply and two ex-top officers stated.
Evacuations from Al Shifa Hospital
A lot to worldwide alarm, Israel made Al Shifa a main focus of its floor advance in north Gaza.
Its forces took it over after reporting clashes with Hamas fighters exterior and are combing the premises and excavating elements of it, saying they’ve discovered proof of a Hamas redoubt underground. Al Shifa employees say Israel has confirmed no such factor.
Palestinian Well being Minister Mai al-Kaila stated all besides about 125 of round 1,000-1,500 war-wounded or sick sufferers, in addition to 34 new child infants together with a small variety of medical doctors and nurses, had been pressured to depart Al Shifa by Israeli troops.
“The state of affairs at (Al Shifa) could be very catastrophic. It’s now with out gasoline, with out meals, with out medication, with out meals, with out water — this implies killing them (sufferers),” she informed a press convention in Ramallah, within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution.
The Israeli military denied the Palestinian accounts. In an announcement, it stated its forces at Al Shifa had acceded to a request from its director to “develop and help” in additional voluntary evacuations by way of a “safe route”. Medical doctors might keep to help sufferers too weak to be evacuated, it stated.
Palestinian well being officers stated evacuees from Al Shifa had been left to fend for them themselves on foot alongside harmful, bombed-out roads in areas repeatedly below air assault.
“We have been pressured by the occupation authorities to depart Al Shifa,” Ramez Rudwan, an Al Shifa physician, stated as he and his daughter, additionally a physician, arrived in south Gaza on Saturday.
He stated sufferers nonetheless at Al Shifa have been in a dire state on account of a scarcity of medicines with “some micro organism starting to floor on their legs, and worms popping out of wounds”.
With the warfare getting into its seventh week, there was no signal of a let-up, regardless of worldwide requires “humanitarian pauses.”
The U.N. humanitarian company OCHA stated no help entered Gaza for a 3rd day working on Friday and distributions had come to a digital halt on account of a scarcity of safety ensures and gasoline. It stated uncooked sewage has begun flowing within the streets in some areas on account of a scarcity of gasoline to run infrastructure.
Violence has additionally beset Israel’s northern border the place it has been exchanging hearth with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants, and the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, stoking fears the Gaza warfare might kindle a broader Center East battle.
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