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The “most intense day” of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza saw its troops enter three Hamas strongholds on Tuesday, as fears mounted for the 1.8mn people forced to flee their homes in the strip.
“We are in the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation,” said Yaron Finkelman, commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, “in terms of terrorists killed, the number of firefights, and the use of firepower from the land and air”.
As Israel’s ground offensive moved to its most southerly point so far, Finkelman said Israeli soldiers had reached Khan Younis in the south of the strip and entered the Jabaliya neighbourhood in the north and Shuja’iyya to the east of Gaza City — all seen as bastions for the Palestinian militant group Hamas that controls the enclave.
Israel declared war on Hamas in the wake of the militant group’s October 7 assault on southern Israel, when its fighters killed 1,200 people and dragged 240 morte back into Gaza as hostages.
But as it bids to dismantle Hamas and rescue the hostages that are still being held, Israel’s military advance into the enclave has come at a pitiless cost to civilians, humanitarian officials said.
“The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Rick Peeperkorn, WHO representative on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said from Gaza on Tuesday. The UN’s World Food Programme has warned of a “high risk of famine for all the people of Gaza”, where the “food system is on the brink of collapsing”.
“The pulverising of Gaza now ranks among the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for innocent people enduring this hell.”
Palestinian health officials say well over 15,800 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment. While those figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters, Israeli military officials this week said they accepted that about two-thirds of the dead were civilians — a ratio of two ordinary people killed for each fighter. The Financial Times cannot verify the figures.
Israel’s western allies, who play an important role in funding and arming Israel’s military, have tried to rein in the country’s aggression and said that too many civilians were being killed in a bombing campaign that has already left northern Gaza in ruins.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since a week-long truce ended on Friday, despite what Israel has insisted is a technology-enabled evacuation scheme to get civilians out of harm’s way.
Air strikes have been reported in areas where Israel had directed people to advance towards for safety.
“Even in Rafah and Khan Younis where people have been encouraged to flee to, daily bombardment continues to conclude civilians and damage infrastructure,” said Bob Kitchen, vice-president for emergencies at the International Rescue Committee.
“Eighty per cent of Gaza’s population have already been displaced, with the majority of homes totally or partially destroyed,” Kitchen added in a statement on Tuesday.
Militants also unleashed a barrage of rockets on cities in southern Israel on Tuesday, including Tel Aviv.
Additional reporting by Raya Jalabi in Beirut
