Gaza interior ministry: Israeli air strike kills at least 19 near hospital

Thousands of civilians fled southward to flee intense ground combat between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday following an Israeli airstrike on a house close to a hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to the interior ministry of the enclave. The hit claimed at least 19 lives.

The war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip is in its second month. The Israeli government did not immediately respond to this attack, which, if true, would be the third in a week at Gaza’s largest refugee camp.

Palestinian officials said that at least 195 civilians were killed in Israeli airstrikes that decimated portions of Jabalia on October 31 and November 1. The attacks flattened multi-story homes in a heavily populated sector of Gaza’s urban core, which Hamas administers.

Israel said that while attacking active tunnels buried beneath residential areas in Jabalia last week, it also killed two Hamas commanders and many fighters.

The Israeli armored troops have surrounded Gaza City, and the airstrikes on Jabalia have increased international concern over the increasing humanitarian cost of Israel’s incursion into the densely populated coastal enclave.

Israel has held Hamas accountable for the murders of civilians in Gaza, claiming that the group hides its weapons and operational hubs in residential areas and uses Gazans as human shields.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel declared a four-hour window of opportunity during which thousands of Palestinian people trekked in a despondent exodus out of the north.

The Israeli military has warned residents in the north on several occasions to leave or face becoming entangled in the conflict.

However, there was also renewed gunfire in the center and southern areas of the tiny, beleaguered Palestinian enclave.

According to Palestinian health officials, eighteen individuals were murdered on Wednesday morning in an airstrike that targeted homes in the Nusseirat refugee camp. An air attack in Khan Younis claimed the lives of six individuals, including a small child.

“We were sitting in peace when all of a sudden an F16 air strike landed on a house and blew it up—the entire block, three houses next to each other,” said Mohammed Abu Daqa, a witness.

“They are all civilians, no exception. Under the debris are other people who are still missing, including an elderly man and lady.”

The Islamist organization said its members had suffered significant casualties. At the same time, the Israeli military declared that its forces had moved into the center of Gaza City, Hamas’ principal stronghold in the region.

Israel launched an attack on Gaza in retaliation for a cross-border Hamas incursion on southern Israel on October 7, during which militants, primarily civilians, murdered 1,400 people and captured over 240 prisoners, according to Israeli estimates.

According to Palestinian statistics, 40 percent of the 10,569 fatalities on Wednesday were minors. According to Christian Lindmeier, a spokesman for the U.N. health agency, the extent of death and suffering is “hard to fathom” in Geneva.

NIGHTMARE NETWORK
Combat engineers are employing explosive devices, according to chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, to demolish a Hamas tunnel network that runs hundreds of kilometers (miles) beneath Gaza.

The military claimed on Wednesday that it had already demolished 130 subterranean shafts. “Combat engineers fighting in Gaza are destroying the enemy’s weapons and are locating, exposing and detonating tunnel shafts,” added the statement.

According to the Israeli military, airstrikes also claimed the lives of other combatants and Hamas weapons manufacturer Mahsein Abu Zina.

According to sources close to the Iran-backed Hamas and other Islamic Jihad terrorist factions, Israeli tanks have encountered fierce opposition from Hamas fighters utilizing the tunnels to set up ambushes. Israel claims that thirty-three of its troops have died.

U.N. officials have called for a humanitarian pause in the conflict, and the G7 countries to lessen the suffering of people in Gaza, where Israeli shelling has destroyed entire neighborhoods and essential supplies are running low.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a Reuters NEXT conference on Wednesday, “It is… important to make Israel understand that it is against (its) interests to see every day the terrible image of the dramatic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people.” “That doesn’t help Israel in relation to the global public opinion.”

According to a source briefed on the talks on Wednesday, negotiations mediated by Qatar, the home base of numerous Hamas leadership officials, are attempting to obtain the release of ten to fifteen captives in exchange for a one- to two-day humanitarian halt in Gaza.

DATING WITH THE BOMBS
Witnesses said that thousands of Palestinians escaping from the north dragged themselves past damaged and bombed buildings in a continuous queue.

They were instructed to relocate along the central Salah al-Din Road to the south of the Wadi Gaza wetlands by the Israeli military. The 2.3 million people that makeup Gaza are already densely populated in hospitals, schools, and other locations in the south due to the large number of displaced individuals.

Haitham Hejela and her small children were taking refuge in a makeshift tent inside Gaza City’s major Al Shifa hospital, one of the thousands of people still within the surrounding area.

“The situation is getting worse day after day,” she stated. “Water and food are absent. My youngster has to wait in line for three or four hours in order to get water. We don’t have bread because they attacked bakeries.”

With ground soldiers having pushed in to divide the short coastal enclave in two amid heavy urban combat among the rubble of houses, Israel’s declared goal is to destroy Hamas. Israel has been pounding Gaza from the air, land, and sea. Reuters was unable to confirm either side’s statements from the battlefield.