Israel yesterday bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee to ahead of an expected ground invasion, killing dozens of people in retaliatory attacks it says are targeted at Hamas militants that rule the besieged territory.
With no water, fuel or food being delivered to Gaza since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, mediators struggled to break a deadlock over delivering supplies to increasingly desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals.
US President Joe Biden prepared to head to the region as he and other world leaders tried to prevent the war from sparking a broader regional conflict.
Photo: AP
Violence yesterday flared along Israel’s border with Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants operate.
In Gaza, dozens of injured were rushed to hospitals after heavy attacks outside the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, residents reported.
Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former health minister, reported 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.
Photo: AP
An Associated Press reporter saw about 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Family members came to claim the bodies, wrapped in white bedsheets, some soaked in blood.
An airstrike in Deir al-Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing nine members of the family living there. Three members of another family that had evacuated from Gaza City were killed in a neighboring home. The dead included one man and 11 women and children. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.
“When we see a target, when we see something moving that is Hamas, we’ll take care of it,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said.
The UN Human Rights Office decried “appalling reports” that civilians who were trying to flee to southern Gaza were killed by a military strike.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani urged Israeli forces to avoid “aerial bombardments, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks” and to “take precautions to avoid — and in any case, to minimize — loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said that his country’s retaliation against Hamas aims to eradicate the group’s political and military rule over Gaza.
“We are not fighting just our war. We’re fighting the war of all civilized countries and all civilized peoples,” he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Israel for the second time in a week on Monday after a six-country tour through Arab nations, said in Tel Aviv that the US and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to enable humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Gaza.
There were few details, but the plan would include “the possibility of creating areas to help keep civilians out of harm’s way,” he said.
US Central Command head General Erik Kurilla arrived in Tel Aviv for meetings with Israeli military authorities ahead of a Biden visit planned for today to signal White House support for Israel.
Biden is also to travel to Jordan to meet with Arab leaders amid fears the fighting could spread in the region.
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