Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hamas in an expanding offensive into southern Gaza on Wednesday, forcing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians to cram into a city close to the Egyptian border to avoid Israeli bombardment.
However, many feared they would not be safe in Rafah either with their options for refuge dwindling.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had already fled from northern Gaza to the south during the two-month-old war between Israel and the Palestinian enclave’s ruling Islamist militant movement that it is trying to wipe out.
The latest exodus leaves many displaced Palestinians increasingly cornered near the fortified Egyptian border, in an area that has been deemed safe by Israel’s military in leaflets dropped by its aircraft, as well as in phone and online messages.
“No place in Gaza is safe, and tomorrow they are going to come after us in Rafah,” Samir Abu Ali, a 45-year-old father of five, told Reuters by telephone from Rafah.
‘Targeted raids’
Israeli forces were operating in the heart of southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, for the first time, its military said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
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Soldiers had begun “targeted raids” in central Khan Younis, which the statement identified as a symbol of Hamas’s military and administrative rule.
Israeli warplanes also bombarded targets across the densely populated coastal strip in one of the heaviest phases of the war in the two months since Israel began its military campaign following a deadly cross-border Hamas assault.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were encircling the Khan Younis house of the enclave’s Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar. “His house may not be his fortress and he can escape, but it’s only a matter of time before we get him,” Netanyahu said in a recorded video statement.
Yahya Sinwar is the leader of Hamas in Gaza and is considered to be one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. CBC’s Terence McKenna examines his rise to power and his destructive tactics — described as sophisticated, cunning and ruthless.
Residents in Khan Younis told Reuters that Israeli tanks had neared Sinwar’s home, but it was not known whether he or any of his family were there. Israel has said it believes many Hamas leaders and fighters are holed up in underground tunnels.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said combat was fierce. Residents said Israeli bombing intensified overnight, killing and wounding civilians, and that tanks were battling Palestinian militants north and east of Khan Younis.
Hundreds of thousands of people made homeless in the north were desperately seeking shelter in the diminishing number of places in the south designated as safe areas by Israel.
The United Nations humanitarian office said in a report on Wednesday that most of the homeless people in Rafah were sleeping rough due to a lack of tents, although the UN had managed to distribute a few hundred.
As It Happens8:26Israeli hostage’s father describes emotionally difficult meeting with PM
On Tuesday, family members of the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 met with Israel’s war cabinet, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The families had pushed for that meeting, which they hoped would be a step toward the release of the dozens of hostages still in Gaza. But, as Shai Wenkert told As It Happens host Nil Köksal, the meeting wasn’t an easy one. His 22-year-old-son, Omer, is one of the hostages.
The UN report said that while some aid had entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, the surge in hostilities since a weeklong truce collapsed on Dec. 1 was hampering distribution. Israel late Wednesday said it would allow a minimal increase in fuel allowed into Gaza.
Israel unleashed its military campaign in response to an attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israel’s tally.
Figures from the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza put the death toll there at 16,015, including 43 reported by one hospital on Tuesday and 73 by another on Wednesday.
Since Monday, the ministry has not released daily casualty updates for all of Gaza, leaving it unclear whether the new overall toll was comprehensive. Amid the conflict, loss of staff and damage to information and health systems have interfered with data-gathering.
Israel said on Wednesday that 85 of its soldiers had been killed since its armoured forces invaded Gaza five weeks ago.
Supplies running short at hospitals
As Israel broadened its ground onslaught after largely taking control of northern Gaza last month, Palestinian medics said hospitals were overflowing with the dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies were running out.
Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, in north Gaza, was overwhelmed “by the growing numbers of wounded who are bleeding to death,” Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said in a statement.
Israel says it seeks to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, according to international law. Critics and even its closest ally, the U.S., say it needs to do more.
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief said the situation was “apocalyptic,” with the risk that serious rights violations were being committed by both sides.
Leaders of the G7 nations, including Israel’s close ally, the United States, called for further humanitarian truces “to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and minimize civilian casualties.”
The United Nations Security Council received a UAE-drafted resolution on Wednesday that demanded an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” with a vote sought on Friday.