As Israel’s war with Hamas enters its second month, there are few safe places left in Gaza for Palestinian civilians
source : www.abc.net.au
Israeli forces have begun to push into Gaza City, while tanks remained stationed on the outskirts ahead of a possible storming of Gaza’s urban heart.
“Every day and every hour the troops kill militants, expose tunnels and destroy weapons and advance to enemy centers,” Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) commander Major General Yaron Finkelman told reporters near the border.
Israel previously said it had surrounded Gaza City, home to about a third of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents, and would soon attack to destroy Hamas fighters there.
There was no indication on the ground that Israeli forces had pushed further into the city en masse, but an IDF spokesman suggested that surrounding forces could stage incursions.
Hamas’ military wing said it inflicted heavy losses and damage on advancing Israeli forces.
It was not possible to verify the battlefield claims of either side.
Here are the latest developments:
A full month of carnage
The war began on October 7 when Hamas militants crossed the fence surrounding Gaza, killing 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and kidnapping more than 200, according to Israeli figures. Since then, Israel has continuously bombed Hamas-held Gaza, killing more than 10,000 people, about 40 percent of them children, according to regional health officials.
“It has been a full month of carnage, of ceaseless suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage and despair,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement at the start of a trip to the region, where he will visit the Rafah. crossing from Egypt, the only route for help.
Israel gave residents from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to leave Gaza City. Residents say Israeli tanks have moved mainly at night, with Israeli forces relying largely on air and artillery strikes to clear a path for their advance on the ground.
“For your safety, take this next opportunity to move south, beyond Wadi Gaza,” the army announced, referring to the wetlands that bisect the narrow coastal area.
Gaza’s Interior Ministry says 900,000 Palestinians are still sheltering in northern Gaza, including Gaza City.
“The most dangerous journey of my life. We saw the tanks up close (distance). We saw decomposed body parts. We saw death,” wrote one resident.
While Israel’s military operation focuses on the northern half of Gaza, the south is also under attack. Palestinian health officials said at least 23 people were killed early Tuesday morning in two separate Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
“We are civilians,” said Ahmed Ayesh, who was rescued from the rubble of a house in Khan Younis where health officials said 11 people had been killed. “This is the courage of so-called Israel – they are showing their power and might against civilians, babies inside, children inside and the elderly.”
As he spoke, rescuers at the house tried with their hands to free a girl who was buried up to her waist in rubble.
A still image from an Israeli military video showed what the army said were Palestinians holding white flags as they moved south in a line. Hamas said the army had forced the people in the video to act the way they did to humiliate them.
While Israel’s military operation focuses on the northern half of Gaza, the south is also under attack. Palestinian health officials said at least 23 people were killed early Tuesday morning in two separate Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would consider “tactical small pauses” in the fighting in Gaza to allow hostages to leave or emergency aid to enter, but he again rejected international calls for a ceasefire.
Services in Gaza are close to “breaking point” without fuel supplies, the UN humanitarian agency said. Gaza’s Interior Ministry said all bakeries in the north were out of service due to Israeli attacks and lack of fuel.
Israel seeks indefinite control
Israel has given few clear indications about the fate it sees for Gaza once the war is over.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, and two years later Hamas took control there, defeating the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in a separate Israeli-occupied territory, the West Bank.
Asked who would be responsible for security in Gaza after Hamas was defeated, Netanyahu told US television’s ABC News: “I think Israel will have overall security responsibility indefinitely, because we have seen what happens when we don’t do that.” I don’t have that safety responsibility.”
Simcha Rothman, a politician in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition, said in a social media post: “Our armed forces must not shed blood to give the Gaza Strip in a bow to the Palestinian Authority… Only full Israeli control and a complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.” the strip will restore safety.”
However, the White House said US President Joe Biden is not in favor of an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza. “It’s not good for Israel, it’s not good for the Israeli people,” spokesman John Kirby said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has held talks with leaders in the region about what Gaza’s governance could look like after the war, Kirby told CNN. “Whatever it is, it can’t be what it was on October 6. It can’t be Hamas.”
While Israelis overwhelmingly support the military campaign to root out Hamas after last month’s attacks, there is some concern over whether Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has the diplomatic tools to find a long-term solution for Gaza.
Opposition Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli said Israel should work with the United States, Arab countries and the PA on a plan for a “political victory” in Gaza to make Israel safe once Hamas is defeated militarily.
The Israeli army said it had captured a militant complex in northern Gaza and planned to attack fighters hiding in a warren of underground tunnels. Footage has been released of troops using bulldozers to dig up dirt and knock down walls.
Israeli Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told reporters that Hamas fighters “emerged from tunnels” to fire rocket-propelled grenades at Israeli forces.
“So we are really doing our best to destroy these tunnels as we approach and approach Gaza City,” he said.
Israel has rejected calls for a halt to the fighting, saying hostages must be released first. Hamas says it will not free them or stop fighting while Gaza is under attack.
Foreigners rush to reach the border across Rafah
Since last week, hundreds of Gazans with foreign passports have been allowed to enter Egypt through the Rafah border crossing. But the vast majority are trapped in the comic, and those who managed to escape describe their agony at leaving loved ones behind.
“It’s just a horror movie on repeat,” Suzan Beseiso, 31, a Palestinian-American who managed to leave Gaza for Egypt last week, told Reuters in Cairo. ‘No sleep. No food. No water. You just keep evacuating from one place to another.”
The United States has assisted more than 400 U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and other eligible people to leave Gaza, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said.
The border crossing was closed on Saturday and Sunday after an Israeli attack on an ambulance heading to Rafah. Egyptian security sources said Egypt continued to push for more aid and fuel in the zone and security for ambulances.
The number of evacuees heading into Egypt from Gaza rose on Tuesday, a day after the Rafah crossing was reopened.
At least 320 foreigners and family members passed through the border crossing, the only crossing not controlled by Israel, on Tuesday, along with 100 Egyptians, an Egyptian security source said.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said 262 Jordanians were evacuated on Tuesday, out of a total of 569 trapped in Gaza after fighting broke out there.
However, only four wounded Gazans were allowed through, a medical source said, joining dozens of others being treated in Egyptian hospitals.
Wires
source : www.abc.net.au
