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By Bassam Massoud and Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
GAZA (Reuters) -Israeli forces stormed southern Gaza’s major metropolis on Tuesday in what they referred to as probably the most intense day of fight in 5 weeks of floor operations in opposition to Hamas militants, and hospitals struggled to deal with scores of Palestinian lifeless and wounded.
In what seemed to be the largest floor assault in Gaza since a truce with Hamas unravelled final week, Israel mentioned its troops – who had been backed by warplanes – had reached the center of Khan Younis and had been additionally surrounding the town.
“We’re in probably the most intense day because the starting of the bottom operation,” the commander of the Israeli navy’s Southern Command, Normal Yaron Finkelman, mentioned in a press release.
He mentioned Israeli forces had been additionally combating in Jabalia, a big city refugee camp and Hamas hotbed in northern Gaza subsequent to Gaza Metropolis, and in Shuja’iyya, east of the town.
“We’re within the coronary heart of Jabalia, within the coronary heart of Shuja’iyya, and now additionally within the coronary heart of Khan Younis,” he mentioned.
Hamas’ armed wing, the al Qassam Brigades, mentioned its fighters had destroyed or broken 24 Israeli navy automobiles and snipers had killed or wounded eight Israeli troopers in ongoing clashes in varied areas of Khan Younis.
Individually, Gaza well being officers mentioned many individuals had been killed in an Israeli strike on homes in Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis. Dr Eyad Al-Jabri, head of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital there, instructed Reuters at the least 45 had been killed. Reuters couldn’t attain the world or verify the toll.
After days of ordering residents to flee the world, Israeli forces dropped new leaflets on Tuesday with directions to remain inside shelters and hospitals through the assault.
“Don’t get out. Going out is harmful. You will have been warned,” mentioned the leaflets, addressed to residents of six districts amounting to round 1 / 4 of Khan Younis.
“Sixty days after the battle started, our forces are actually encircling the Khan Younis space,” mentioned Lieutenant Normal Herzi Halevi, chief of Israel’s Normal Employees, referring to the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel that triggered the battle.
“Now we have secured many Hamas strongholds within the northern Gaza Strip, and now we’re working in opposition to its strongholds within the south,” Halevi instructed a press convention.
The Israelis, who largely seized Gaza’s northern half final month earlier than pausing for the week-long truce, imagine Hamas commanders they intention to get rid of are holed up in a part of an enormous underground tunnel community within the territory.
Israel unleashed its marketing campaign in retribution for an assault on Oct. 7 by Hamas fighters who rampaged by way of Israeli cities, killing 1,200 individuals and seizing 240 hostages, in keeping with Israel’s tally.
Hamas’ media workplace mentioned on Tuesday at the least 16,248 individuals together with 7,112 youngsters and 4,885 girls had been killed in Gaza by Israeli navy motion since Oct. 7. Hundreds extra are lacking and feared buried underneath rubble.
It was not instantly attainable to confirm the media workplace’s figures with the Gaza well being ministry.
Hamas mentioned on Tuesday there would no extra negotiations or alternate of detainees till Israeli “aggression” in opposition to Gaza stopped. Greater than 100 of the 240 hostages Hamas took in its October incursion had been freed through the seven-day truce.
‘DIFFICULT’ SECOND STAGE OF WAR
“We’re shifting forward with the second stage now. A second stage that’s going to be troublesome militarily,” Israeli authorities spokesperson Eylon Levy mentioned.
Israel, he added, is open to “constructive suggestions” on decreasing hurt to civilians so long as the recommendation is according to its intention of destroying Gaza’s ruling Islamist motion.
The USA on Tuesday once more pressed Israel, its clsoe ally, to uphold worldwide humanitarian legislation and do extra to scale back hurt to civilians within the battle’s subsequent part. Regardless of the mounting dying toll, it mentioned Israel was now displaying some receptiveness to the calls.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a serious humanitarian company, disagreed strongly, saying the Israeli onslaught in Gaza “can by no means be described as self-defence”:
“There should even be accountability for this, from political and navy leaders in addition to those that offered arms and assist … The state of affairs in Gaza is a complete failure of our shared humanity. The killing should cease,” he mentioned in a press release.
Israel says the blame for civilian casualties largely falls on Hamas fighters for working in residential areas, together with from underground tunnels that may be destroyed solely with large bombs. Hamas denies utilizing human shields.
Israeli bombardments have pushed 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents from their properties, most fleeing south. Crowded southern areas are actually sheltering triple their standard inhabitants.
At Khan Younis’ major Nasser hospital, the wounded arrived by ambulance, automotive, flatbed truck and donkey cart after what survivors described as a strike on a faculty getting used as a shelter for the displaced.
Inside a ward, nearly each inch of blood-splattered flooring house was taken up by the wounded together with babies, with medics hurrying from affected person to affected person whereas kin wailed.
Two younger women had been being handled, nonetheless coated in mud from the collapse of the home that had buried their household.
“My mother and father are underneath the rubble,” sobbed one. “I need my mum, I need my mum, I need my household.”
For the reason that truce collapsed, Israel has been posting an internet map to inform Gazans which components of the enclave to evacuate. Khan Younis’ jap quarter was marked on Monday, dwelling to lots of of 1000’s of individuals, lots of whom took flight on foot.
Gazans say there isn’t any secure place, with remaining cities and shelters already overwhelmed, and Israel persevering with to bomb the areas the place it’s telling individuals to go.
(Reporting by Bassam Massoud and Ibrahim Abu Mustafa in Khan Younis, Gaza; Mohammed Salem and Arafat Barbakh in Rafah, Gaza; Maayan Lubell, Ari Rabinovich and Emily Rose in Jerusalem; Maggie Fick in Beirut, Nandita Bose in Washington; writing by Peter Graff and Mark Heinrich; enhancing by Angus MacSwan and Timothy Heritage)
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