Israel focuses assault on southern Gaza amid concern over wider war

Beirut/Cairo/Gaza — Israeli shelling killed 14 Palestinians on Thursday in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area of the Gaza Strip packed with people who had fled attacks in other parts of the enclave, Gaza health ministry officials said.

The dead included nine children, an official told Reuters.

There was no comment from the Israeli military on the attack though it had reported fighting and air strikes against Hamas militants in the Khan Younis area on Thursday.

Gaza residents also said Israeli planes and tanks bombarded three refugee camps in the centre of the shattered enclave, prompting many civilians to head south.

Israel’s war against Hamas is nearing the three-month mark amid international concern that the conflict is spreading beyond Gaza, drawing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hezbollah forces on the Lebanon-Israel border, and Red Sea shipping lanes.

Fears were heightened after a drone strike on Tuesday killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed that his powerful Iran-backed Shiite militia “cannot be silent” after the killing.

Nasrallah said his forces would fight to the finish if Israel chose to extend the war to Lebanon, but he made no concrete threats to act against Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari declined to comment when asked what Israel was doing to prepare for a potential Hezbollah response, saying only: “We are focused on the fight against Hamas.”

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, meeting US envoy Amos Hochstein, said there must be a “new reality” in the Lebanon-Israel border region which would allow Israelis who have evacuated northern areas to return.

“We will not tolerate the threats posed by the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, and we will ensure the security of our citizens,” he was quoted in a ministry statement as saying.

Hezbollah has been embroiled in nearly daily exchanges of shelling with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since the Gaza war began. But US officials said on Wednesday they saw little sign that Hezbollah was about to escalate actions against Israel.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied assassinating Arouri but has promised to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza, after its October 7 cross-border assault in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 abducted.

Israel unleashed a ground and air blitz of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack. The total recorded Palestinian death toll had reached 22,438 by Thursday — almost 1% of its 2.3-million population, the Gaza health ministry said. Some 125 of these were killed in the past 24 hours, it said.

Adding to the patchwork of violence across the region, two explosions on Wednesday killed nearly 100 people during a memorial ceremony for the late Iranian general Qassem Soleimani at the cemetery in southeastern Iran where he is buried. No group has claimed responsibility.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel, to continue “diplomatic
consultations”, a US official said.

Gaza bloodshed

In Thursday’s reported strike in Al-Mawasi on the western side of Khan Younis, health ministry officials said nine children were among the 14 dead. Israeli shells had landed near tents erected in the area by displaced people, they said.

Footage circulated in Palestinian media showed several bodies wrapped in blankets inside a hospital morgue in Khan Younis.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its headquarters in Khan Younis was hit, killing one person and wounding others.

The Israeli military reported several clashes in Khan Younis, where it has said previously that it is trying to flush out Hamas leaders hiding there.

In its daily briefing, it said Israeli warplanes killed three Hamas militants who had tried to detonate explosive next to ground troops, and Israeli soldiers killed two more.

Mud adds to misery 

Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated enclave and created a humanitarian disaster. Most Gazans have been left homeless, with food shortages threatening famine.

On Thursday, people poured out of Al-Bureij, Al-Maghazi and Al-Nusseirat refugee camps after attacks, with some families riding on donkey carts loaded with mattresses, luggage and children.

Rain has turned earth to mud, adding to the misery of people whose next home was likely to be a tent on a patch of waste ground.

“Israel is showing its muscles on civilians, women and children. They are cowards,” said Salama Ahmed, 49, a north Gaza resident and father of five heading to Rafah in the south.

"...Are they fighting Hamas? They are fighting the unarmed civilians,” he told Reuters.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said it was closing one humanitarian corridor along which people could flee and opening another. Only movement from north to south would be allowed, he said. It will be open for five hours until 4pm.

While Israel has pledged to eradicate Hamas, its longer-term plans for the enclave are unclear. Foreign governments and organisations have said any solution must address Palestinian aspirations for an independent state, but that prospect seems distant.

In the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians also seek statehood, Israeli forces searched houses in the Nour al-Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm city on Thursday.

Residents said troops detained at least 120 people and demolished three houses, including one belonging to a member of the Tulkarm Brigades, a militant group linked to the Palestinian faction Fatah.

Reuters