This image taken from southern Israel close to the border with the Gaza Strip exhibits smoke rising from buildings after being hit by Israeli strikes, as battles resume between Israel and Hamas militants, on December 1, 2023.
John Macdougall | AFP | Getty Photos
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned too many harmless Palestinians had been killed in Gaza as Israeli conflict planes and artillery bombarded the enclave on Saturday following the collapse of a truce
with Hamas militants.
Residents feared the barrages have been a prelude to an Israeli floor operation within the south of the Palestinian territory that will pen them right into a shrinking space and presumably attempt to push them throughout into Egypt.
The Gaza well being ministry mentioned at the least 193 Palestinians had been killed and 650 wounded because the truce ended on Friday morning – including to the greater than 15,000 Palestinian lifeless because the begin of the conflict.
Talking in Dubai, Harris mentioned Israel had a proper to defend itself, however worldwide and humanitarian legislation should be revered and “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”.
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza, are devastating,” Harris instructed reporters.
She additionally sketched out a U.S. imaginative and prescient for post-conflict Gaza, saying the worldwide neighborhood should assist restoration and Palestinian safety forces should be strengthened.
“We want to see a unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian voices and aspirations must be at the center of this work,” she mentioned, including that Hamas should now not run Gaza.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority governs elements of the occupied West Financial institution. Hamas seized management of Gaza in 2007 from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ mainstream Fatah celebration and has dominated the enclave ever since.
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas as soon as and for all, saying the Islamist group is bent on its destruction.
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mentioned Israel didn’t wish to see Gaza’s civilians caught within the crossfire.
Israel seeks ‘safety envelope”
“Israel is focusing on Hamas, a brutal terrorist group that has dedicated essentially the most horrific violence towards harmless civilians. Israel is making a most effort to safeguard Gaza’s civilians,” Regev said.
He said that when the war was over, Israel would seek a “safety envelope” with special zones and arrangements to prevent Hamas from being positioned on its border.
Throughout Saturday morning, a steady stream of wounded people were carried into the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, some receiving treatment on the floor.
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said the renewed fighting was intense.
“It is a new layer of destruction approaching prime of large, unparalleled destruction,” Robert Mardini told Reuters in Dubai.
With conditions inside Gaza reaching “breaking level”, in Mardini’s words, the first aid trucks since the end of the truce entered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing on Saturday, Egyptian security and Red Crescent sources said.
A senior official said Israel would facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilians.
The warring sides blamed each other for the collapse of the seven-day truce, during which Hamas had released hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Israel said on Saturday it had recalled a team from Qatar, host of indirect negotiations with Hamas, accusing the Palestinian faction of reneging on a deal to free all the women and children it was holding.
French President Francois Macron meanwhile said he was heading to Qatar to work on a new truce.
The conflict broke out on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than 200 hostages were taken back into Gaza.
Israel responded with a bombing campaign and a ground offensive in the north, destroying swathes of Gaza.
South targeted
The southern part of Gaza including Khan Rounis and Rafah was being pounded on Saturday. Residents said houses had been hit and three mosques destroyed in Khan Younis. Columns of smoke rose into the sky.
Displaced Gazans have been sheltering in Khan Younis and Rafah because of fighting in the north, but residents said they feared Israeli troops were preparing to move south.
“This is similar tactic they used earlier than coming into Gaza and the north,” said Yamen, who gave only his first name.
Yamen fled to Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza from the north after Israel destroyed several districts there.
“The place to after Deir Al-Balah, after Khan Younis? I do not know the place I’d take my spouse and 6 kids.”
On Saturday morning, Israeli air strikes hit areas close to the Nasser Hospital six times, medics and witnesses said.
The hospital is filled with thousands of displaced and hundreds of wounded, including many of those who had been evacuated from north Gaza hospitals.
“An evening of horror,” said Samira, a mother of four. “It was one of many worst nights we spent in Khan Younis prior to now six weeks since we arrived right here … We’re so afraid they are going to enter Khan Younis.”
Among the dead on Saturday was the president of the territory’s Islamic University, a theoretical physicist and applied mathematician killed with his family when a house was bombed, health officials said.
Militant targets
The Israeli army mentioned that within the area of 24 hours its floor, air and naval forces had hit 400 militant targets and killed an unspecified variety of Hamas fighters.
These included many in northern Gaza, some in a gun battle at a mosque utilized by Islamic Jihad militants as a command publish.
Hamas mentioned its forces had killed and injured various Israeli troopers in northern Gaza.
Leaflets dropped by Israel on jap areas of Khan Younis ordered residents of 4 cities to evacuate – to not different areas in Khan Younis as prior to now, however additional south to Rafah.
Residents took to the street with belongings heaped up in carts, looking for shelter additional west.
Reuters couldn’t verify the battlefield accounts.
