Combating between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza’s second-largest metropolis, blocking help from inhabitants

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops battled Hamas militants Wednesday within the heart of the Gaza Strip’s second-largest metropolis, the navy stated. The bottom offensive has despatched tens of 1000’s of Palestinians fleeing to the territory’s southernmost edge and prevented help teams from delivering meals, water and different provides.

Two months into the struggle, Israel’s offensive into southern Gaza was bringing to Khan Younis the identical fierce city combating and intensified bombardment that obliterated a lot of Gaza Metropolis and the north of the territory in current weeks.

However within the south, the areas the place Palestinians can search security are quickly shrinking. Forward of the assault, Israel urged residents to evacuate Khan Younis, the childhood house of two prime Hamas leaders. However a lot of the town’s inhabitants stays in place, together with massive numbers who have been displaced from northern Gaza and are unable to go away or cautious of fleeing to the disastrously overcrowded far south.

Lower off from exterior help, individuals in United Nations-run shelters in Khan Younis are combating over meals, stated Nawraz Abu Libdeh, a shelter resident who has been displaced six instances.

“The starvation struggle has began,” he stated. “That is the worst of all wars.”

The U.N. says some 1.87 million individuals — over 80% of the inhabitants of two.3 million — have already fled their properties, lots of them displaced a number of instances. Virtually the complete inhabitants is now crowded into southern and central Gaza, depending on help.

Late Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres used a hardly ever exercised energy to warn the Safety Council of an impending “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza and urged members to demand a cease-fire. He invoked Article 99 of the U.N. Constitution, a step no U.N. chief has taken in half a century, which says the secretary-general might inform the council of issues believed to threaten worldwide peace and safety.

Israel accused the U.N. chief of “a brand new ethical low” and “bias towards Israel.” America signaled it will not help Safety Council motion.

Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk stated, “Palestinians in Gaza reside in utter, deepening horror.” Talking at a information convention in Geneva, he stated that “my humanitarian colleagues have described the state of affairs as apocalyptic.”

Israel’s marketing campaign has killed greater than 16,200 individuals in Gaza — most of them girls and kids — and wounded greater than 42,000, the territory’s Well being Ministry stated late Tuesday. The company has stated many are additionally trapped below rubble. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel has vowed to battle on, saying it might now not settle for Hamas rule or the group’s navy presence in Gaza after the Oct. 7 assault that triggered the struggle. Hamas and different militants killed about 1,200 individuals, largely civilians, and took captive some 240 individuals in that assault.

An estimated 138 hostages stay in Gaza after greater than 100 have been freed throughout a cease-fire in late November. Their plight and accounts of rape and different atrocities dedicated throughout the rampage have deepened Israel’s outrage and additional galvanized help for the struggle.

The refugee camp inside Khan Younis was the childhood house of Hamas’ prime chief in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the group’s navy chief, Mohammed Deif, in addition to different Hamas leaders — giving it main symbolic significance in Israel’s offensive.

Israeli navy spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated Sinwar is “not aboveground, he’s underground,” however wouldn’t elaborate on the place Israel believes him to be. “Our job is to seek out Sinwar and kill him.”

The navy stated its particular forces at Khan Younis had damaged by protection strains of Hamas fighters and have been assaulting their positions within the metropolis heart. It stated warplanes destroyed tunnel shafts and troops seized a Hamas outpost in addition to a number of weapons caches. The Israeli accounts of the battle couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Video launched by the navy confirmed commandos and troops shifting amid sounds of gunfire down metropolis streets strewn with wreckage and buildings with large holes punched into them. Some took positions behind an earthen berm, whereas others inside a house fired out by a window, its flowered curtains fluttering round them.

Hagari stated heavy combating was additionally persevering with within the north, within the Jabaliya refugee camp and the district of Shujaiya.

Hamas posted a video it stated confirmed its fighters in Shujaiya shifting by slim alleys and wrecked buildings and opening fireplace with rocket-propelled grenades on Israel armored autos. A number of of the autos are proven bursting into flames.

Its account couldn’t be independently confirmed. However Hamas ’ persevering with skill to battle in areas the place Israel entered with overwhelming pressure weeks in the past alerts that eradicating the group whereas avoiding additional mass casualties and displacement — as Israel’s prime ally, the U.S., has requested — might show elusive.

Israel accuses Hamas, which has dominated Gaza for 16 years, of utilizing civilians as human shields when the militants function in residential areas and blames that for the excessive civilian loss of life toll. However Israel has not given detailed accounts of its particular person strikes, a few of which have leveled complete metropolis blocks.

The navy says 88 of its troopers have been killed within the Gaza floor offensive. It additionally says some 5,000 militants have been killed, with out saying the way it arrived at its rely.

Tens of 1000’s of individuals have fled from Khan Younis and different areas to Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the U.N. stated. Rafah, usually house to round 280,000 individuals, has already been filled with greater than 470,000 who fled from different components of Gaza.

On the opposite aspect of the border, Egypt has deployed 1000’s of troops and erected earthen limitations to stop any mass inflow of refugees. It says an inflow would undermine its decades-old peace treaty with Israel, and it doubts Israel will allow them to again into Gaza.

Overcrowded shelters and houses are actually overflowing, residents say.

“You discover displaced individuals within the streets, in colleges, in mosques, in hospitals … in all places,” stated Hamza Abu Mustafa, a trainer who lives close to a school-turned-shelter in Rafah and is internet hosting three households himself.

For the previous three days, help teams have solely been capable of distribute provides in and round Rafah — and primarily simply flour and water, the U.N.’s humanitarian help workplace stated. Entry farther north has been reduce off by combating and street closures by Israeli forces. The World Meals Program warned of the worsening of “the catastrophic starvation disaster that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian inhabitants.”

Israeli strikes continued in Rafah, the place the navy has informed evacuees to take refuge. One strike Wednesday night leveled a house within the city’s Shaboura district, the place hours earlier the navy had introduced a pause in operations to permit supply of help. A wave of wounded flowed into a close-by hospital, together with at the least six youngsters. Medics carried within the limp type of one little woman, her face bloodied.

“We dwell in worry each second, for our kids, ourselves, our households,” stated Dalia Abu Samhadaneh, now residing in Shaboura together with her household after fleeing Khan Younis. “We dwell with the nervousness of expulsion.”

She stated diarrhea was rampant amongst youngsters, with little clear water out there.

A Palestinian girl who recognized herself as Umm Ahmed stated the cruel situations and restricted entry to bogs are particularly tough for girls who’re pregnant or menstruating. Some have taken to social media to request menstrual pads, that are more and more laborious to seek out.

“For ladies and ladies, the struggling is double,” Umm Ahmed stated. “It’s extra humiliation.”

Gaza has been with out electrical energy for the reason that first week of the struggle, and a number of other hospitals have been pressured to close down for lack of gasoline to function emergency turbines. Israel barred the entry of meals, water, drugs, gasoline and different provides, aside from a trickle of help from Egypt.

Israel has enormously restricted shipments of gasoline, saying Hamas diverts it for navy functions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated his Safety Cupboard has authorized small deliveries of gasoline into the southern Gaza Strip “every so often” to stop a humanitarian disaster and the unfold of illness. The “minimal quantity” of gasoline shall be set by the struggle cupboard, a three-member authority in control of managing the struggle towards Hamas, Netanyahu stated.

The choice comes as Israel faces mounting strain from the USA to ramp up help to Gaza.

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Jeffery and Keath reported from Cairo. Related Press reporters Samy Magdy in Cairo and Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, contributed.

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Full AP protection at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.