Israeli forces pushed deep into the ruins of Gaza’s northern edge yesterday to recapture an area from Hamas fighters, while in the south tanks and troops pushed across a highway into Rafah, leaving Palestinian civilians scrambling to find safety.
Some of the most intense fighting for weeks is raging in both the north and south. Israeli operations in Rafah, which borders Egypt, have closed a main crossing point for aid, which humanitarian groups say is worsening an already dire situation.
Hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to flee again after around half of Gaza’s population took sanctuary there after Israel ordered evacuations from northern Gaza in October.
Gaza’s health authority appealed for international pressure to reopen access via the southern border to allow in aid, medical supplies and fuel to power generators and ambulances.
“The wounded and sick suffer a slow death because there is no treatment and supplies and they cannot travel,” it said.
A foreign United Nations staff member was killed yesterday when a vehicle travelling to a hospital in Rafah was struck – the first international UN casualty in the Gaza war, a UN spokesperson said.
In northern Gaza’s Jabaliya, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced Palestinians 75 years ago, Israeli forces pushed into an area where they claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago.
Residents fled along rubble-strewn streets carrying bags of belongings. Tank shells landed in the centre of the camp and health officials said they had recovered 20 bodies from overnight air strikes.
“We don’t know where to go. We have been displaced from one place to the next... We are running in the streets. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the tank and the bulldozer. It is on that street,” said one woman, who did not give her name.
The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, with 57 killed in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza health officials, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israeli troops are seeking to wipe out Hamas, which has said it is committed to Israel’s destruction. The group burst into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
Hamas’ armed wing said because of Israeli bombardments it had lost contact with militants guarding four Israeli hostages, including US-Israeli citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who appeared in a video released by Hamas in late April.
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