Israel-Hamas war: Strikes hit central and southern Gaza | AP News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of Palestinian families fled Wednesday from the brunt of Israel's expanding ground offensive into Gaza's few remaining, overcrowded refuges, as the military launched heavy strikes across the center and south of the territory, killing dozens, Palestinian health officials said.
On foot or riding donkey carts loaded with belongings, a stream of people flowed into Deir al-Balah — a town that normally has a population of around 75,000. It has been overwhelmed by several hundred thousand people driven from northern Gaza as the region was pounded to rubble.
Because U.N. shelters are packed many times over capacity, the new arrivals set up tents on sidewalks for the cold winter night. Most crowded onto streets around the town's main hospital, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, hoping it would be safer from Israeli strikes.
Still, no place is safe in Gaza. Israeli offensives are crowding most of the population into Deir al-Balah and Rafah at the territory's southern edge as well as a tiny rural area by the southern coastline. Those areas continue to be hit by Israeli strikes that regularly crush homes full of people.
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Israel has said its campaign in Gaza is likely to last for months, vowing to dismantle Hamas across the territory and prevent a repeat of its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Benny Gantz, a member of the country's three-man War Cabinet, said the fighting "will be expanded, according to need, to additional centers and additional fronts."
He and other Israeli officials also threatened greater military action against Lebanon's Hezbollah, hiking fears of an all-out war on that front.
The two sides have exchanged fire almost daily across the border. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned Wednesday that "all options are on the table" if Hezbollah does not withdraw from the border area, as called for under a 2006 U.N. cease-fire.
Palestinians flee the Israeli ground offensive in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman)
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "must understand that he's next," Cohen said.
DEATH, DISPLACEMENT AND STARVATION
Israel's offensive in Gaza has already been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 21,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The count doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Some 85% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have fled their homes. U.N. officials say a quarter of Gaza's population is starving under Israel's siege, which allows in only a trickle of food, water, fuel and other supplies.
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip set up tents in Deir al Balah, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
The latest people to be displaced fled from several built-up refugee camps in central Gaza targeted in the latest phase of Israel's ground assault. One of the camps, Bureij, came under heavy bombardment throughout the night as Israeli troops moved in.
"It was a night of hell. We haven't seen such bombing since the start of the war," said Rami Abu Mosab, speaking from Bureij, where he has sheltered since fleeing his home in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for Bureij and neighboring areas Tuesday. The area was home to nearly 90,000 people before the war and now shelters more than 61,000 displaced people, mostly from the north, according to the U.N. Bureij camp, like others in Gaza, houses refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation and their descendants and now resembles other densely populated neighborhoods.
It was not known how many were evacuating. In Deir al-Balah over the past two days, empty lots have filled up with families in tents or sleeping on blankets on the ground.
This was the third move further south for Ibrahim al-Zatari, a daily laborer. First he, his wife and four children moved in with relatives in Gaza City after a strike flattened their home in northern Gaza. Later, they fled to Bureij to escape fighting in the city. On Wednesday morning, they made an hourslong journey on foot to Deir al-Balah, where — like many others — they wandered the streets looking for an empty spot to lie down.
"There is no foothold here," he said. "Where should we go?"
With much of northern Gaza leveled, Palestinians fear a similar fate awaits other areas, including Khan Younis, where Israeli forces launched ground operations in early December. The Israeli military said Wednesday it deployed another brigade in the city, a sign of the tough fighting.
Israeli shelling Wednesday struck a residential building in Khan Younis next to Al-Amal Hospital, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which runs the facility.
Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said at least 20 people were killed and dozens more wounded. Footage from the scene showed several torn bodies lying in the street as rescue workers loaded a man whose legs had been severed onto a stretcher.
Despite U.S. calls for Israel to shift to a more precise assault, the military so far appears to be following the same pattern used in earlier phases of the ground offensive in northern Gaza and Khan Younis. Before troops move in, heavy bombardment targets what Israel says is Hamas' tunnels and military infrastructure. Fierce urban fighting follows as troops move block to block, backed by airstrikes and shelling that the military says aim to force out pockets of militants. The resulting devastation has been massive.
Israel has said Hamas must be destroyed after its its Oct. 7 attack in which militants broke through Israel's formidable defenses and killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted around 240. An estimated 129 remain in captivity after dozens were freed.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll in Gaza because the militants operate in residential areas. Late Wednesday, the army said it destroyed a network of tunnels that stretched for several kilometers in Gaza City and served as a command and control center. Part of it ran under a hospital and had an exit inside a neighboring school, it said.
The military says it has killed thousands of militants, without presenting evidence, and that 164 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
WARNING OVER LEBANON
Cross-border exchanges of fire have escalated between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.
Lebanese citizens gather on the rubles of a house that was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike Tuesday night, in Bint Jbeil, South Lebanon, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An Israeli strike on a family home in Lebanon overnight killed a Hezbollah fighter, his brother and his sister-in-law, local officials and state media said Wednesday. A day earlier, a Hezbollah strike wounded 11 people in northern Israel.
Since the Gaza war began, the near daily battles have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their homes from nearby communities. At least nine soldiers and four civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, and around 150 people on the Lebanese side, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other groups, but also 17 civilians.
Gantz warned that time for diplomatic pressure was "running out."
"If the world and the Lebanese government will not act to stop the firing on the northern settlements and keep Hezbollah away from the border, the IDF will do so," he said, referring to the Israeli military.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least six Palestinians during an overnight raid in the refugee neighborhood of Nur Shams, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, mostly in confrontations with Israeli forces during raids and protests.
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Magdy and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Najib Jobain contributed from Rafah, Gaza Strip.
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Find more of AP's coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
LEE KEATH Keath is the chief editor for feature stories in the Middle East for The Associated Press. He has reported from Cairo since 2005.
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The war is spreading besides the continued attacks on Gaza the Lebanon front with Hezbollah is getting more dangerous by the minute. Iran is sending a warning to Israelis for the killing of a top Iranian commander in Syria.
The Houties are attacking more shipping in the Red Sea and the US and allies are shooting down multiple missiles and drones daily.
Perhaps the US needs to be more aggressive in the use counter fire to hit and obliterate the sites that the drones are being launched from. The Houthies need to be taught some lessons.
I read an article a couple of weeks ago when the Houties started with the drones and missiles. Saudi Arabia asked the US to temper its response since they have worked out some sort of cease fire with the Houties. I doubt that the US will ''temper'' it's response much longer with the up tick in attacks. The US sent a warning today to the Houties so we are dangerously close to a very big uptick in the war.
These growing attack illustrates the risks and threats posed by the ungoverned proliferation of long-range conventional and non-conventional capabilities in the hands of non-state actors. It also points out the inconsistent appeasement policies on the part of the US and Europe. It was only several years ago, we were pressuring the Saudi to lay off these rebels.
Strategic Western engagement in Yemen remains no where to be seen.
The civilian casualties in Yemen is staggering both killed by either side or starvation. The US has had special ops troops there since around 2000, the number varies but they are there currently which can complicate any response that we direct toward the Houties.
Yes, Iran supports the rebels and the US has supported the internationally recognized government. The UN tried and failed to broker a peace agreement. And as always, it id the civilians that suffer the most.
While our SF has advised the government forces, their primary purpose there is to conduct counterterrorism operations to target al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula and Islamic State.
What a fucked up region.
The UN is a spectacularly ineffective collection of grifters and idiots.
Not that anyone can broker peace with a terrorist organization.
Or fascists of any ilk.
Amen to that!
But do you think it would be a good idea to send U.S. troops into Yemen?
I think we have had a varying sized force there for over 20 years.
a country "annexing" land outside their borders to make more "room to live" for it's people, and willing to commit genocide to that end, sure has familiar ring to it...
It sure does, devan.
What was a "top Iranian commander" doing in Syria anyway?
Probably a cultural exchange visit.
... and now he's decorating the interior of a destroyed building in syria.
Bingo!
Gaza has turned into a great analogy of shooting fish in a barrel. In this case the fish are given advanced notice to run; only to find out there is no where to run to. They end up getting shot either way; while getting condensed into a smaller and smaller area making it easier to kill them.
Sadly, that is true Ronin.
One possible thing that could help matters would be if Egypt would let Gazans cross over into Egypt-- even if it was in a temporary tent city at the Egyptian side of its Gaza border.
And then they could be gradually re-settled in other Arab countries.
Many countries have admitted-- and re-settl;ed refugees from war torn lands (including the U.S.). With some 20 + Arab countries, surely there would be a few that would help their fellow Arabs trying to escape war...?
Why should Egypt take in problems?