Israel push into Gaza from north, south
Israeli forces pushed deep into the ruins of Gaza's northern edge yesterday to recapture an area where they had claimed to have defeated Hamas months ago, while at the opposite end of the enclave tanks and troops pushed across a highway into Rafah.
With some of the most intense fighting for weeks now taking place on both the northern and southern edges of Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have again taken flight, and aid groups warn that a humanitarian crisis could sharply worsen.
Israeli forces ordered medical staff at Rafah's Kuwaiti Hospital to evacuate. Medics based at the hospital fear that an attack on the hospital would mean a "complete collapse" of the limited medical system in Rafah, reports Al Jazeera online.
- 20 bodies recovered from Jabalia camp after Israeli strikes
- Medical staff ordered out of Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah
In sprawling Jabalia, the biggest of Gaza's eight camps built 75 years ago to house Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel, tanks pushed towards the heart of the district. Residents said tank shells were landing at the centre of the camp and air strikes had destroyed clusters of houses.
Thick clouds of black smoke from explosions could be seen rising over northern Gaza from the Israeli border.
Palestinian health officials yesterday said they had so far recovered 20 bodies of Palestinians killed in the overnight air strikes on Jabalia, while dozens were injured.
The Palestinian death toll in the offensive has now risen to 35,091, according to Gaza health officials who fear many more bodies are lost under the rubble. The toll includes at least 57 deaths over the past 24 hours.
At the opposite end of Gaza in Rafah, against the border fence with Egypt, Israel stepped up aerial and ground bombardments on the eastern areas of the city, killing people in an air strike on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood, reports Reuters.
Israel ordered residents out of the east of the city last week, and extended that order to central areas in recent days, sending hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are already displaced, fleeing for new shelters.
Residents said Israeli air and ground bombardments were intensifying and tanks had cut off the main north-south Salahuddin Road that divides the eastern part of the city from the central area.
UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, estimated that about 360,000 people had fled the southern city since the Israeli military gave its first evacuation order a week ago.
Jack Lew, the US ambassador to Israel, signalled on Sunday that the Rafah incursion was still on a scale that Washington considers acceptable.
Hamas' armed wing said its fighters were engaged in gun battles with Israeli forces in one of the streets east of Rafah, and in the east of Jabalia.
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