Israel-Hamas War: Fresh strikes in Gaza kill 45 people as Palestinian death count crosses 42,000
Israel ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza to the south, but officials say there are no safe places to flee in the territory. The northern part of the country has been largely isolated by Israeli forces and has suffered extensive destruction due to large-scale airstrikes.
Israel-Hamas War: The Israeli military carried out new strikes in the battered Gaza Strip, killing 45 people in the past 24 hours, according to Palestinian medics as Israel pushed on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of the territory. The Israeli military said the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.
Despite Israel ordering people to evacuate from Jabalia and nearby areas, Palestinian and UN officials said there are no safe places to flee in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received unconfirmed reports that dozens of Palestinians may have been killed in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza, but is unable reach them because of Israeli bombardments.
An airstrike early Wednesday killed at least nine people, including two women and two children, according to the Al-Ahly Hospital, which received the bodies. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received unconfirmed reports that dozens of Palestinians may have been killed in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza, but is unable reach them because of Israeli bombardments.
Israel ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in the opening weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. Israel reiterated those instructions earlier this month, telling people to flee south to an expanded humanitarian zone along the coast where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into squalid tent camps.
Over 42,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza
October 7 marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel, where it fired over 5,000 missiles and its militants entered the country, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 people hostage. Israel launched a devastating military offensive that has killed 42,010 Palestinians and wounded 97,720 others since the start of the war, Gaza's health ministry said on Wednesday.
The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza offers a cautionary tale as Israel expands a week-old ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran. Almost 90 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes as most of the enclave has been flattened by relentless Israeli airstrikes.
Israel's offensive has also gutted Gaza's health sector, forcing most of its hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning. Fadel Naeem, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it has received dozens of dead and wounded people from across the northern half of the Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its air and ground operation there earlier this month.
“The situation is tense,” Naeem told The Associated Press in text message. “We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable to receive the growing numbers of wounded arriving from the north.”
Israel's warning to Hezbollah on 'ending up like Gaza'
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday cautioned the people of Lebanon that they risk facing "destruction and suffering" akin to what Palestinians are experiencing in Gaza if they do not "liberate" their country from Hezbollah's influence. In a message aimed at the Lebanese populace on Tuesday, the Prime Minister stated, "You have a chance to save Lebanon before it descends into a prolonged war that will bring devastation similar to that seen in Gaza. I urge you, the people of Lebanon: Free your country from Hezbollah to bring an end to this conflict."
Subsequently, Hezbollah fired another barrage of rockets into Israel on Tuesday, and the militant group's acting leader vowed to keep up the pressure that has forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes near the Lebanese border. The Israeli military said it sent more ground troops into southern Lebanon and that a senior Hezbollah commander was killed in an airstrike. The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched about 180 rockets across the border.
So far, ground operations appear to be focused on a narrow strip along the border, but Israel has warned people to evacuate dozens of cities and towns across southern Lebanon, many of them north of a buffer zone declared by the United Nations after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
(with inputs from agencies)
ALSO READ | Netanyahu confirms Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah's rumoured successor