Airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed a top Hamas weapons maker and several fighters, the Israeli military said on Wednesday, as its air and ground offensive targeted the militants’ vast tunnel network beneath the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Gaza City, the Hamas militant group’s main stronghold in the territory, is encircled by Israeli forces. The military said troops have advanced to the heart of the densely-populated city while Hamas says its fighters have inflicted heavy losses.
The Israeli military statement said two separate strikes eliminated a leading Hamas armourer, Mahsein Abu Zina, and fighters engaged in anti-tank or ground-to-ground rocket fire.
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Palestinian media also reported clashes between militants and Israeli forces near al-Shati (Beach) refugee camp in Gaza City.
Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield claims of either side.
Featured VideoCanadians and permanent residents are gathering at the Rafah border crossing again on Wednesday. ‘Gaza is now not a place for living, you know,’ says one man, who described living under Israel’s bombardment. ‘They destroyed everything.’
Israel has pounded Gaza from the air and used ground troops to divide the narrow coastal strip in two, following the Hamas raid on southern Israel on Oct. 7, when gunmen killed 1,400 people, including several Canadians, and took some 240 hostages.
After days of delay for many Canadians in Gaza, dozens are expected to leave Gaza through the Rafa border with Egypt for a second consecutive day.
‘The next day is worse’
The Israeli bombardment has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, around 40 per cent of them children, over the past month, according to counts by health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The level of death and suffering is “hard to fathom,” UN health agency spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.
“Every day, you think it is the worst day and then the next day is worse,” Lindmeier said, quoting a colleague in Gaza.
The G7 on Wednesday issued a “unified message” on the Israel-Hamas war, including a call for a humanitarian pause in the fighting and a “peace process.”
The statement did not specify what that peace process was beyond stressing that a two-state solution “remains the only path to a just, lasting, and secure peace.”
The G7 comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, with the European Union also taking part in the summit. The only other G7 statement came after a meeting of its finance ministers on Oct. 12 and amounted to a few, brief sentences
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel would consider “tactical little pauses” but, alongside its close ally the United States and other Western countries, has rejected calls for a ceasefire that it says would allow Hamas to regroup.
Featured VideoIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, also said no to a general ceasefire in Gaza, but added that ‘tactical, little pauses’ remain a possibility.
The G7 had appeared to struggle to agree on a firm, united approach to the war, raising questions over its relevance as a force to tackle major crises. G7 divisions have also been evident at the United Nations, with France voting in favour of a resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in the conflict on Oct. 26, the U.S. opposing it and the group’s other members abstaining.
Israel has been vague about its long-term plans for Gaza. In some of the first direct comments on the subject, Netanyahu said this week that Israel would seek to have security responsibility for Gaza “for an indefinite period.”
But Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told the Wall Street Journal that Israel wanted the territory to be under an international coalition, including the U.S., European Union and Muslim-majority countries, or administered by Gaza political leaders.
Diplomats in Washington, the United Nations, the Middle East and beyond have also started weighing the options.
Featured VideoWARNING: Video contains distressing details | A field filled with burnt-out cars and destroyed motorcycles is a haunting reminder of the brutality of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. CBC’s Ellen Mauro went there and met people who survived and others trying to get answers about the ones who didn’t.
Hostages believed held in tunnels
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel had “one target — Hamas terrorists in Gaza, their infrastructure, their commanders, bunkers, communications rooms.”
Chief military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said combat engineers were using explosive devices to destroy a tunnel network built by Hamas that stretches for hundreds of kilometres beneath Gaza. Israeli tanks have encountered heavy resistance from Hamas fighters using the tunnels to launch ambushes, according to sources with Hamas and the separate Islamic Jihad militant group.
Israel says 32 of its soldiers have been killed.
Israelis have voiced fear that military operations could further endanger hostages, who are believed to be held in the tunnels. Israel says it won’t agree to a ceasefire until the hostages are released. Hamas says it won’t stop fighting while Gaza is under attack.
“I challenge [Israel] if it has been able, to this moment, to record any military achievement on the ground other than killing civilians,” senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Al Jazeera television.
‘No food, no water’
Nearly two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are internally displaced, according to UN figures, with thousands seeking refuge at hospitals including in makeshift canvas shelters in their car parks.
About 15,000 people fled northern Gaza on Tuesday, triple the number that left Monday, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. They are using Gaza’s main north-south highway during a daily four-hour window announced by Israel.
Featured VideoThe Israeli military says it is now fighting Hamas in the heart of Gaza City. As it pushes forward, more civilians walk the dangerous trip south to avoid the fighting and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu floats the idea of having to reoccupy Gaza after the war ends.
Those fleeing include children, the elderly and people with disabilities, and most walked with minimal belongings, the UN agency said. Some say they had to cross Israeli checkpoints, where they saw people being arrested, while others held their hands in the air and raised white flags while passing Israeli tanks.
At Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital, Um Haitham Hejela, a woman sheltering with young children in an improvised tent fashioned from fabric, said they fled their home because of airstrikes.
“The situation is getting worse day after day,” she said. “There is no food, no water. When my son goes to pick up water, he queues for three or four hours in the line. They struck bakeries, we don’t have bread.”
The UN says Gaza’s health system is close to collapse, battered by airstrikes, flooded with trauma patients, and running out ot medicines and fuel. Saudi owned al-Hadath TV reported that the Indonesian hospital in Gaza had lost power.
Featured VideoMany in the West Bank see Israel’s war against Hamas as an attack on the Palestinian people. CBC’s Margaret Evans breaks down why some say it will only increase support for the militant Islamist group.
There are 350,000 patients with chronic conditions in Gaza, including cancer and diabetes, as well as 50,000 pregnant women, according to data from United Nations organizations, and many are no longer receiving treatment.
“The longer we wait, the worse some patients will get. Many people will die merely because they have no access to treatment,” said Osama Qadoumi, the supervisor at Makassed Hospital.