2023-12-03 23:40:47
Israel bombed the Gaza Strip again this Sunday, while calls from the US and other countries intensify to stop the death of “innocent civilians.” Israeli military forces said they have expanded their ground offensive against the Hamas group to “all parts” of the south of the enclavewhich once again sees its dire humanitarian situation worsen.
Israel resumed its attacks on Friday after a week-long truce with Hamas ended. After focusing its ground operations in northern Gaza in recent weeks, Israel began carrying out air raids against the south as well, as confirmed this Sunday by the Israeli military spokesman, Admiral Daniel Hagari. “The Israeli army is continuing and expanding the ground operation against the Hamas presence in all parts of the Gaza Strip,” he said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris again criticized the deaths of civilians in eight weeks of hostilities, sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and another 240 were taken hostage, including one twenty Argentines. In response, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and unleashed an air and ground campaign that has left more than 15,000 deadmostly and of whom about 6,000 are children, according to the Hamas authorities who control Gaza.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have died,” Harris told reporters during the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, adding to pressure from the US government to reinstate a new ceasefire.
A week-long truce brokered with the help of Qatar and backed by Egypt and the United States led to the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. But that truce collapsed on Friday and the two sides blame each other for violating its terms. Israeli negotiators left Doha on Saturday in the absence of agreements for a new pause in hostilities. Israel said Saturday that there are still 137 hostages in Gaza.
Destroys. Palestinian groups verify the damage after an Israeli attack in Rafah (AFP).
This Sunday, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of more areas in the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, Khan Younis, and its surroundings, and continued its intense bombing. Palestinians in Gaza said they now have almost nowhere to go.
The Gaza Strip, a narrow territory between Israel and Egypt, is sealed. Many of its 2.3 million inhabitants are overcrowded in the south after Israel ordered civilians to leave the north of the enclave at the start of the war. Prior to the most recent evacuation orders, United Nations monitors said the areas under evacuation orders make up about a quarter of the territory.
During the night and early morning Intense shelling was reported in the Khan Yunis area and the southern city of Rafah, as well as parts of the north that were the main target of the harsh Israeli air and ground campaign.
Juliette Toma, communications director for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said about 958,000 people were in 99 U.N. facilities in the southern Gaza Strip. UN human rights commissioner Volker Türk called for an end to the war, saying the suffering of civilians was “impossible to bear.”
With the resumption of fighting, hopes of negotiating another truce diminished. A week-long ceasefire that ended Friday had facilitated the release of dozens of Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
““We will continue to wage war until we achieve all its objectives, and it is impossible to achieve those objectives without the ground operation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address Saturday night. Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, said any resumption of negotiations on future exchanges will be conditional on a permanent ceasefire.
In Washington, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the United States is “working really hard” to achieve a resumption of negotiations.
Palestinians help a Rafah resident after receiving shrapnel in an Israeli bombing (AFP).
South Gaza residents said Israeli army dropped leaflets ordering residents to move to Rafah or to a coastal area in the southwest. AP videos showed bodies in body bags on the ground outside Dier al Balah hospital as dozens of people offered funeral prayers Sunday morning.
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