Gaza/Jerusalem, Dec. 7, 2023 – Israel battled Hamas’s militants in the Gaza Strip’s biggest cities on Thursday and said it had attacked dozens of targets, leaving Palestinians struggling to survive in a situation the United Nations described as “apocalyptic”.
Gazans crammed into Rafah on the border with Egypt, heeding Israeli leaflets and messages saying that they would be safe in the city.
But more than 20 people were killed in apartments there on Wednesday sheltering displaced civilians from the north, said Eyad al-Hobi, a relative of some of those killed.
“All apartments in the building suffered serious damage,” he said as people brought out two apparently lifeless children.
Another relative, Bassam al-Hobi, said the building had been hit by three rockets.
“They targeted women and children, as you can see, and the guests who were told the south would be safe,” he said, gesturing to bodies wrapped in white cloth, some small, lined up on the ground and surrounded by mourners.
Elsewhere in Rafah, medics said four people had been killed while traveling in a rickshaw on Thursday.
Israel said militants had fired at least one rocket from Rafah and that its forces had killed a number of gunmen in southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, including two militants who emerged firing from a tunnel.
Hamas’ armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, said combat was fierce after troops entered the heart of Khan Younis on Wednesday in a new phase of the war, which is now entering its third month.
Ambulances and relatives rushed people, including women and children, into the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, but even the floor space inside was already full. Two badly wounded children lay on one trolley and a dust-covered and bloodstained young boy lay screaming among the patients on the floor.
“The injuries are very severe,” said doctor Mohamed Matar. “The situation is catastrophic in all senses of the word…We can’t treat the injured in this state.”
Residents said several Israeli air strikes had hit the city and there was non-stop tank fire on its eastern side. In central Gaza, medics said four people had been killed in a house in Nusseirat refugee camp overnight.
Those who escape violence face an increasingly desperate struggle to survive.
Hundreds of people packed a road in central city of Deir al-Balah, waiting for food outside a U.N. compound that had yet to open, a video posted by Ramy Abdu, founder of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, showed.
The U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said 1.9 million people – 85 percent of Gaza’s population – had been displaced, its shelters were four times over capacity, and there was not enough aid to meet “the overwhelming needs”.
Egypt said it was working to accelerate the delivery of aid, but would never allow the emptying of the Gaza Strip of its residents as they are pushed southwards towards its border.
The Palestinian death toll reported by Gaza medics in the eight weeks of warfare was at 16,015, including 43 reported by one hospital on Tuesday and 73 by another on Wednesday.
Gaza’s health ministry has not released overall casualty figures since Monday, and it and the U.N. say hundreds of people are unaccounted for under rubble. (Reuters)
