Tens of thousands flee and sleeping families killed as Israel steps up attacks in Gaza

Tens of thousands of newly-displaced Gazans sought shelter in the centre and south of the enclave on Friday as Israel maintained its ground offensive against Hamas, while its air strikes flattened homes and buried families as they slept.

On day 84 of the Gaza war the fiercest clashes continued to focus on the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel believes the Hamas leadership is based underground and,Israeli hostages are being held. Seven Israel Defense Forces brigades are fighting in Khan Younis and the IDF believes there are about 150km of Hamas tunnels under the city.

Israel warned that the battles will last for weeks.

The United Nations estimates that 150,000 residents of central Gaza have been forced to flee their homes as the Israeli military pushed into three refugee camps in the area. About 100,000 of the newly-displaced residents arrived in Rafah at the southern tip of Gaza, a city which is already struggling to cope after about one million refugees arrived there from the north of the enclave.

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According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza more than 21,500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks. Israel believes some 8,000 of the fatalities are militants. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped when Hamas gunmen crossed into southern Israel on October 7th.

In Rafah in the south, Reuters journalists at the scene of one air strike that destroyed a building saw the head of a buried toddler sticking out of the rubble. The child screamed as a rescue worker shielded his head with a hand, while another swung a sledgehammer at a chisel, trying to break up a slab of concrete to free him.

Neighbour Sanad Abu Tabet said the two-storey house had been crowded with displaced people. After morning broke, relatives came to collect the dead wrapped up in white shrouds. A man peeled away the cloth to stroke the face of a dead child.

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its ongoing crackdown against Hamas in Gaza.

In another development, far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that as long as he continued to serve in his position, Israel would not pass on sums to the Palestinian Authority that Israel collects in taxes for transfer to the PA. His comment came after media reports that US president Joe Biden requested in a conversation with prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu that these funds be transferred to the PA.

On Thursday night Mr Netanyahu was forced at the last minute to cancel a war cabinet discussion on plans for the “day after” in Gaza, after Mr Smotrich threatened to quit the government if the issue was discussed in the war cabinet instead of in the wider security cabinet, which also includes far-right members.

A delegation of Hamas officials arrived in Cairo on Friday to give its response to an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, including the staggered release of all the hostages and Hamas relinquishing control of Gaza. More than 100 hostages were released during a six-day ceasefire in November, but up to 129 are still being held in Gaza. More than 20 are known to have died since October 7th.

Sirens sounded throughout the day on Friday on Israel’s northern border, which saw some 30 rocket attacks and drone infiltrations, amid ongoing threats by Israeli leaders to act militarily to remove the Iran-backed militant group Hizbullah from southern Lebanon. The IDF said it carried out an “extensive strike” in Lebanon, targeting launch positions and a Hizbullah military compound. Hizbullah claimed to have neutralised most of the Israeli army’s observation devices on the border.

The Saudi Al Arabiya news website reported that 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed on Thursday night in an attack near Damascus airport attributed to Israel. According to the report, the attack was carried out as a delegation of commanders of the Revolutionary Guard in eastern Syria were arriving at the airport.

The stepped-up attacks in Syria in recent weeks attributed to Israel are believed to be an effort to thwart Iran from replenishing Hizbullah forces in south Lebanon, in advance of a possible further escalation along Israel’s northern border.

In an opinion piece calling for direct action against Iran published in the Wall Street Journal, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said Israel had destroyed a drone base in Iran when he was prime minister in 2022 and killed an Iranian commander a month after his unit targeted Israeli tourists in Turkey.

Violence also continued in the occupied West Bank. Nine people, soldiers and civilians, were injured in two separate car ramming attacks. Another two Israelis were also wounded in a stabbing attack at a roadblock near Jerusalem. The assailant was shot and killed. – Additional reporting: Reuters

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