Death toll mounts as Israeli raids on Gaza spread
Israeli forces pounded central Gaza by land, sea and air and Palestinian authorities reported dozens more deaths, with the U.N. health agency saying thousands of people were trying to flee the fighting.
Israel remains resolved to wipe out the Palestinian militant group Hamas in response to the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, despite international calls for a ceasefire and easing of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli planes carried out three strikes in Al Nuseirat in central Gaza, killing seven people and wounding several others, medics said late on Wednesday.
The U.N. World Health Organization said its staff had seen tens of thousands of people fleeing heavy strikes in Khan Younis and the Middle Area on foot, on donkeys or in cars. Makeshift shelters were being built along the road, it said on Wednesday.
On the diplomatic front, where international pressure on Israel has grown, French President Emmanuel Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call of the need to work towards a durable ceasefire with the help of regional and international partners, the French Presidency said.
A Gaza health ministry statement said an Israeli airstrike killed 20 Palestinians on Wednesday near Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
In central Gaza’s Al-Maghazi district, five Palestinians were killed in one airstrike, medics said, while to the north in Gaza City, health officials said the bodies of seven Palestinians arrived at Al Shifa Hospital.
Residents in the central Gaza Strip said with nightfall, Israeli tank shelling intensified east of Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi where tanks have been trying to force their way through.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military on Wednesday reported three more soldiers killed in action in Gaza, bringing total military losses to 166 since ground operations began on Oct. 20.
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. The Netanyahu government’s response has laid much of Hamas-ruled Gaza to waste.
The Gaza health ministry said the recorded toll in the enclave was 21,110 killed and 55,243 wounded in Israeli attacks.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.
Reuters
