CAIRO/GAZA/JERUSALEM - Israeli forces pounded central Gaza by land, sea and air on Wednesday and Palestinian authorities reported dozens more deaths, including 20 in one attack.
Reflecting Israeli resolve to wipe out Hamas despite international calls for a ceasefire amid a humanitarian crisis, Israel’s military chief Herzi Halevi said on Tuesday the war would last many months. There were “no short cuts in dismantling a terrorist organization,” he said.
A Gaza health ministry statement said an Israeli air strike killed 20 Palestinians on Wednesday near the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. A telecommunications outage in much of the enclave hindered efforts to reach Palestinian casualties overnight but was gradually coming back online at mid-morning.
In central Gaza’s Al-Maghazi district, five Palestinians were killed in one air strike, medics said, while to the north in Gaza City health officials said the bodies of seven Palestinians killed overnight arrived at Al Shifa Hospital.
Residents also reported heavy fighting east and north of the Al-Bureij district and in the nearby village of Juhr Ad-Deek, where they said Israeli tanks are stationed.
Israel’s military on Wednesday reported three more soldiers killed in action in Gaza, bringing total military losses in the enclave since ground operations began on Oct. 20 to 166. The war erupted after Hamas killed 1,200 people and captured 240 hostages in a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded with an assault that has laid much of Hamas-ruled Gaza to waste.
The Gaza health ministry said Israeli forces had killed 195 Palestinians and wounded 325 in the past 24 hours, bringing the recorded toll to 21,110 killed and 55,243 wounded in Israeli attacks in the coastal Palestinian territory since Oct. 7.
Nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, many several times.
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, a huge clock counted the time elapsed since Hamas took the hostages as families kept up their campaign for their loved ones to be freed.
Israeli has intensified its raids this week, particularly in a central area just south of the waterway that bisects the narrow coastal strip. The Israeli army told civilians to leave the area, though many said there was nowhere left to go. The Israeli military said on Wednesday its warplanes had also targeted Hezbollah military sites and other locations in Lebanon. Huge plumes of smoke were seen on the border. Security sources said Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, had fired the most rockets and weaponised drones against Israel on Wednesday that it has in a single day since the spate of daily clashes began. Further highlighting the difficulties in treating the wounded in Gaza, the World Health Organization released footage, taken mostly on Monday and Tuesday at several hospitals, with WHO emergency medical team coordinator Sean Casey saying Gaza’s health capacity was 20% of what it was 80 days ago.
“We’re seeing almost only trauma cases come through the door and at a scale that’s quite difficult to believe. It’s a bloodbath as we said before, it’s carnage.” Casey said nowhere in Gaza was safe.
