Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza’s second-largest city, blocking aid from population

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops battled Hamas militants Wednesday within the heart of the Gaza Strip’s second-largest metropolis, the army stated. The bottom offensive has despatched tens of hundreds of Palestinians fleeing to the territory’s southernmost edge and prevented support teams from delivering meals, water and different provides.

Two months into the battle, Israel’s offensive into southern Gaza was bringing to Khan Younis the identical fierce city preventing and intensified bombardment that obliterated a lot of Gaza Metropolis and the north of the territory in latest weeks.

However within the south, the areas the place Palestinians can search security are quickly shrinking. Forward of the assault, Israel urged residents to evacuate Khan Younis, the childhood dwelling of two prime Hamas leaders. However a lot of town’s inhabitants stays in place, together with massive numbers who had been displaced from northern Gaza and are unable to depart or cautious of fleeing to the disastrously overcrowded far south.

Lower off from outdoors support, folks in United Nations-run shelters in Khan Younis are preventing over meals, stated Nawraz Abu Libdeh, a shelter resident who has been displaced six instances.

“The starvation battle has began,” he stated. “That is the worst of all wars.”

The U.N. says some 1.87 million folks — over 80% of the inhabitants of two.3 million — have already fled their houses, lots of them displaced a number of instances. Virtually the whole inhabitants is now crowded into southern and central Gaza, depending on support.

Late Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres used a not often exercised energy to warn the Safety Council of an impending “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza and urged members to demand a cease-fire. He invoked Article 99 of the U.N. Constitution, a step no U.N. chief has taken in half a century, which says the secretary-general might inform the council of issues believed to threaten worldwide peace and safety.

Israel accused the U.N. chief of “a brand new ethical low” and “bias towards Israel.” The USA signaled it might not assist Safety Council motion.

Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk stated, “Palestinians in Gaza live in utter, deepening horror.” Talking at a information convention in Geneva, he stated that “my humanitarian colleagues have described the state of affairs as apocalyptic.”

Israel’s marketing campaign has killed greater than 16,200 folks in Gaza — most of them girls and kids — and wounded greater than 42,000, the territory’s Well being Ministry stated late Tuesday. The company has stated many are additionally trapped underneath rubble. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel has vowed to struggle on, saying it will possibly not settle for Hamas rule or the group’s army presence in Gaza after the Oct. 7 assault that triggered the battle. Hamas and different militants killed about 1,200 folks, largely civilians, and took captive some 240 folks in that assault.

An estimated 138 hostages stay in Gaza after greater than 100 had been freed throughout a cease-fire in late November. Their plight and accounts of rape and different atrocities dedicated through the rampage have deepened Israel’s outrage and additional galvanized assist for the battle.

The refugee camp inside Khan Younis was the childhood dwelling of Hamas’ prime chief in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the group’s army chief, Mohammed Deif, in addition to different Hamas leaders — giving it main symbolic significance in Israel’s offensive.

Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated Sinwar is “not aboveground, he’s underground,” however wouldn’t elaborate on the place Israel believes him to be. “Our job is to search out Sinwar and kill him.”

The army stated its particular forces at Khan Younis had damaged via protection traces of Hamas fighters and had been assaulting their positions within the metropolis heart. It stated warplanes destroyed tunnel shafts and troops seized a Hamas outpost in addition to a number of weapons caches. The Israeli accounts of the battle couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Video launched by the army confirmed commandos and troops shifting amid sounds of gunfire down metropolis streets strewn with wreckage and buildings with large holes punched into them. Some took positions behind an earthen berm, whereas others inside a house fired out via a window, its flowered curtains fluttering round them.

Hagari stated heavy preventing was additionally persevering with within the north, within the Jabaliya refugee camp and the district of Shujaiya.

Hamas posted a video it stated confirmed its fighters in Shujaiya shifting via slim alleys and wrecked buildings and opening hearth with rocket-propelled grenades on Israel armored automobiles. A number of of the automobiles are proven bursting into flames.

Its account couldn’t be independently confirmed. However Hamas ’ persevering with skill to struggle in areas the place Israel entered with overwhelming drive weeks in the past indicators that eradicating the group whereas avoiding additional mass casualties and displacement — as Israel’s prime ally, the U.S., has requested — might show elusive.

Israel accuses Hamas, which has dominated Gaza for 16 years, of utilizing civilians as human shields when the militants function in residential areas and blames that for the excessive civilian loss of life toll. However Israel has not given detailed accounts of its particular person strikes, a few of which have leveled complete metropolis blocks.

The army says 88 of its troopers have been killed within the Gaza floor offensive. It additionally says some 5,000 militants have been killed, with out saying the way it arrived at its rely.

Tens of hundreds of individuals have fled from Khan Younis and different areas to Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the U.N. stated. Rafah, usually dwelling to round 280,000 folks, has already been filled with greater than 470,000 who fled from different elements of Gaza.

On the opposite aspect of the border, Egypt has deployed hundreds of troops and erected earthen obstacles to stop any mass inflow of refugees. It says an inflow would undermine its decades-old peace treaty with Israel, and it doubts Israel will allow them to again into Gaza.

Overcrowded shelters and houses at the moment are overflowing, residents say.

“You discover displaced folks within the streets, in colleges, in mosques, in hospitals … in all places,” stated Hamza Abu Mustafa, a trainer who lives close to a school-turned-shelter in Rafah and is internet hosting three households himself.

For the previous three days, support teams have solely been in a position to distribute provides in and round Rafah — and primarily simply flour and water, the U.N.’s humanitarian support workplace stated. Entry farther north has been reduce off by preventing and street closures by Israeli forces. The World Meals Program warned of the worsening of “the catastrophic starvation disaster that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian inhabitants.”

Israeli strikes continued in Rafah, the place the army has instructed evacuees to take refuge. One strike Wednesday night leveled a house within the city’s Shaboura district, the place hours earlier the army had introduced a pause in operations to permit supply of support. A wave of wounded flowed into a close-by hospital, together with at the very least six youngsters. Medics carried within the limp type of one little woman, her face bloodied.

“We stay in worry each second, for our youngsters, ourselves, our households,” stated Dalia Abu Samhadaneh, now residing in Shaboura together with her household after fleeing Khan Younis. “We stay with the nervousness of expulsion.”

She stated diarrhea was rampant amongst youngsters, with little clear water obtainable.

A Palestinian lady who recognized herself as Umm Ahmed stated the tough situations and restricted entry to bathrooms are particularly troublesome for ladies who’re pregnant or menstruating. Some have taken to social media to request menstrual pads, that are more and more laborious to search out.

“For girls and women, the struggling is double,” Umm Ahmed stated. “It’s extra humiliation.”

Gaza has been with out electrical energy for the reason that first week of the battle, and a number of other hospitals have been compelled to close down for lack of gasoline to function emergency mills. Israel barred the entry of meals, water, drugs, gasoline and different provides, aside from a trickle of support from Egypt.

Israel has tremendously restricted shipments of gasoline, saying Hamas diverts it for army functions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated his Safety Cupboard has authorised small deliveries of gasoline into the southern Gaza Strip “once in a while” to stop a humanitarian disaster and the unfold of illness. The “minimal quantity” of gasoline will probably be set by the battle cupboard, a three-member authority in control of managing the battle towards Hamas, Netanyahu stated.

The choice comes as Israel faces mounting strain from america to ramp up support to Gaza.

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Jeffery and Keath reported from Cairo. Related Press reporters Samy Magdy in Cairo and Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, contributed.

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Full AP protection at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.