Palestinian medics said that Israeli tanks blocked the road and bombed targets around the main Al-Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals that are still operating in the city, trapping medical teams, patients and displaced people gathered inside or near the hospital.
Israel says that Hamas fighters use hospital buildings as a cover for their bases, which the Islamic movement and medical staff deny.
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground attack on the Gaza Strip sit next to the border fence with Egypt in Rafah.credit: AP
Tens of thousands of displaced people who took refuge on Thursday in a compound in Khan Yunis prepared to flee to Rafah, 15 km away, after nearby Israeli tank forces ordered all civilians inside to leave, UN officials said. They added that more than 30,000 people were crowded inside the complex.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that less than 20 percent of the narrow enclave – which has an area of about 60 square kilometers – now houses more than 1.5 million displaced people in the south, where escalating fighting “threatens their survival.”
Palestinian health officials say that about 25,900 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli raids on Gaza, while the bombing leveled large areas of the densely packed Strip.
The issue of genocide
Israel launched its war to eliminate Hamas after the militants stormed the border fence in a surprise incursion into nearby Israeli towns and bases on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostage, according to Israeli figures.
The Israeli army said that it killed more than 9,000 Gaza activists and lost 220 soldiers in the war that has been ongoing for three and a half months. Hamas rejected Israeli figures regarding the number of activists killed.
Ahead of the UN judges' ruling on Friday on South Africa's request for an immediate halt to Israel's military operation in Gaza, which it accused of state-led genocide, Hamas said it would abide by any ceasefire ruling if Israel reciprocated.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in a press conference in Beirut that Hamas will release the Israeli hostages in Gaza if Israel releases all Palestinian prisoners.
Israel asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to categorically reject the case. An Israeli government spokesman said on Thursday that they expect the UN Supreme Court to “drop these false and misleading accusations.”
Urgent international calls for a ceasefire to spare civilians who bear the brunt of the casualties fell on deaf ears, and Israel pledged not to back down until Hamas was eliminated and all hostages were released.
Hamas says that any agreement must depend on Israel ending its attack and siege and withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.
Sources told Reuters that mediation talks on a month-long truce that could see the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel have resumed, but have faltered due to disagreements between the two sides over how to end the war.
An official familiar with the details of the meeting told Reuters on Thursday that the directors of the Israeli Mossad and CIA intelligence services will meet with the Qatari Prime Minister in Europe early next week to discuss a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of the hostages.
The conflict in Gaza threatens to destabilize the Middle East and fuel hostilities in areas extending from the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the border area between Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and the important shipping lanes for international trade on the Red Sea.
Reuters
