Heavy fighting across Gaza amid renewed US military and diplomatic support
Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip: Heavy fighting raged across Gaza overnight, including in the devastated north, as Israel pressed ahead with its offensive after the US blocked the latest international push for a ceasefire and rushed more munitions to its close ally.
Israel has faced rising international outrage and calls for a permanent ceasefire after the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians. About 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, where UN agencies say there is no safe place to flee.The United States has lent vital support to the offensive by vetoing United Nations Security Council efforts to end the fighting and by pushing through an emergency sale of more than $US100 million ($152 million) worth of tank ammunition to Israel.
The US has pledged unwavering support for Israel’s goal of crushing Hamas’ military and governing abilities, and returning all the hostages captured in the October 7 attack that triggered the war.
Hamas and other Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel that day, killing some 1200 people and capturing about 240, more than 100 of whom were released during a weeklong ceasefire late last month.
Israel’s air and ground war in response has killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly civilians. With very little aid allowed in, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.
“Expect public order to completely break down soon, and an even worse situation could unfold including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a forum in Qatar, a key intermediary.
Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, called allegations of mass displacement from Gaza “outrageous and false”.
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, told the forum that mediation efforts to stop the war and have all hostages released will continue, but “unfortunately, we are not seeing the same willingness that we had seen in the weeks before”.
Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Israel’s Channel 12 TV that the US has set no deadline for Israel to achieve its goals. “The evaluation that this can’t be measured in weeks is correct, and I’m not sure it can be measured in months.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that “we have these discussions with Israel including about the duration as well as how it’s prosecuting this campaign against Hamas. These are decisions for Israel to make”. He added to America’s ABC: “When it comes to a ceasefire in this moment, with Hamas still alive, still intact … that would simply perpetuate the problem.”
This is a war that cannot be won, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, asserted to the Qatar forum, warning that “Israel has created an amount of hatred that will haunt this region that will define generations to come”.
Israeli forces face heavy resistance, including in northern Gaza, where neighbourhoods have been flattened by airstrikes and where ground troops have operated for more than six weeks.
Residents said there was still heavy fighting in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Shijaiyah and the Jabaliya refugee camp, a dense urban area housing Palestinian families who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
“They are attacking anything that moves,” said Hamza Abu Fatouh, a Shijaiyah resident. He said the dead and wounded were left in the streets as ambulances could no longer reach the area, where Israeli snipers and tanks positioned themselves among abandoned buildings.
Israel ordered the evacuation of the northern third of the territory, including Gaza City, early in the war, but tens of thousands of people have remained, fearing that the south would be no safer or that they would never be allowed to return home.
Heavy fighting was also under way in and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
With the war in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,700, the majority women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
Israel says it has provided detailed instructions for civilians to evacuate to safer areas, even as it strikes what it says are militant targets in all parts of the territory. Thousands have fled to areas along the border with Egypt — one of the last places where aid agencies are able to deliver food and water.