Israeli airstrikes and ground operations were focused yesterday on the Gazan city of Khan Yunis, where the UN said nine people were killed by tank shelling at one of its shelters the day before.
The deadly incident came after the Israeli army said it had encircled the city, where footage released by the military showed soldiers engaged in urban combat amid ruined buildings.
Hamas’ press office also reported fierce clashes in the center and west of Khan Yunis, while its health ministry counted multiple deaths overnight from strikes in the city and elsewhere in the territory.
Photo: AP
It said four children were killed in the Nuseirat camp in an early morning bombardment yesterday.
Wednesday’s attack on the UN shelter for displaced people saw the site hit by two tank rounds, killing nine and injuring 75, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugee (UNRWA) Affairs Director Thomas White said.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said the number of dead was likely to rise.
“Once again a blatant disregard of basic rules of war,” Lazzarini said on the social media platform X, adding that the compound had been clearly marked as a UN facility and its coordinates had been shared with Israeli authorities.
When asked about the incident, the Israeli army said “a thorough review of the operations of the forces in the vicinity is under way,” adding that it was examining the possibility that the strike was a “result of Hamas fire.”
The US condemned the attack, with US Department of State spokesman Vedant Patel saying: “Civilians must be protected and the protected nature of UN facilities must be respected.”
The Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
Militants also seized 250 hostages, and Israel said about 132 remain in Gaza.
That number includes the bodies of at least 28 dead hostages.
In response, Israel has carried out a relentless military offensive that has killed at least 25,700 people in Gaza, about 70 percent of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
In the southern border town of Rafah on Wednesday, Palestinians inspected the damage after a strike on a mosque, which had been reduced to rubble.
“We headed to Rafah based on [Israeli] instructions that it is a safe zone, only to discover that it is just like other areas,” said Mohammed Barbakh, who had been displaced from Khan Yunis.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced mounting calls for a ceasefire, with domestic pressure intensifying after 24 soldiers were killed on Monday in the army’s deadliest single day since it launched ground operations in Gaza.
In Tel Aviv, Israeli protesters carried a banner saying “Stop the bloodshed” and blocked a road during a demonstration to demand a deal for the release of the hostages held by Hamas.
“We came to say to the government, ‘It’s enough.’ We want all the hostages back home, we want a ceasefire now,” protester Sapir Sluzker Amran said. “There is no military solution, only a diplomatic solution — only agreements will bring the hostages back.”
Netanyahu has been adamant the war is to continue, telling Israeli parliament on Wednesday that the fighting would persist until the “aggression and evil” of Hamas were destroyed.
“This is a war for our home,” he said.
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