GAZA STRIP: Israel pressed on with its bombing of Gaza on Tuesday after saying its campaign to destroy Hamas has left the Palestinian group on the “the verge of dissolution”.
Humanitarian leaders fear the besieged territory will soon be overwhelmed by disease and starvation, and are piling diplomatic pressure on Israel to boost efforts to protect civilians.
Fighting raged on Tuesday, with Hamas saying clashes had taken place in central Gaza and witnesses reporting deadly Israeli strikes in the south of the territory.
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Israeli air strikes killed at least 12 people in the southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt, where tens of thousands of people are seeking shelter, official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
Strikes on Monday targeted Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, now the epicentre of the fighting.
“Hamas is on the verge of dissolution – the IDF is taking over its last strongholds,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late Monday.
The war began with Hamas’s October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and saw around 240 hostages taken back to Gaza.
Israel has responded with an offensive that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 18,200 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.
Israel’s army chief Herzi Halevi on Monday visited the centre of Khan Yunis, where he said his forces were “securing our accomplishments in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the entrance in the southern part of the Strip, and also deep down into the ground”.
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The UN estimates 1.9 million of the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, half of them children.
Fighting and heavy bombardment in the south, where Israel had previously urged civilians to seek safety, have left people with few places to go.
Umm Mohammed al-Jabri lost seven children in an air strike on Rafah after fleeing there from Gaza City further north.
“I have four children left,” said Jabri, 56. “Last night they bombed the house we were in and destroyed it. They said Rafah would be a safe place. There is no safe place.”
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