The Israeli army continued its pressure on northern Gaza on Wednesday, striking a suburb of Gaza City, Palestinian doctors said, and told residents in a central part of the enclave to evacuate an area where militants were firing rockets.
Airstrikes in Shejaiya, a suburb of Gaza City, killed at least eight Palestinians, according to local emergency services.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military and it was not immediately clear who was killed in the attack.
In Al-Bureij in central Gaza, the Israeli military said it struck a militant operating in an area from which rockets had been fired into Israel the day before. Its Arabic-language spokesman, in a post on X, had ordered people to leave the area before the attack.
Palestinian news agency WAFA said two people were killed in that attack and 15 others in an airstrike in Jabalia. There was no immediate confirmation from Gaza health officials. The Israeli military said it killed Hamas fighters in the attack.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and leveled, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends. He denied this.
Israel says its nearly three-month campaign in northern Gaza is aimed at preventing the regrouping of Hamas militants. The military says its instructions for evacuating civilians are meant to keep them out of harm’s way.
There is no end in sight
Palestinian and United Nations officials say that no place is safe in Gaza and that the evacuations worsen the humanitarian conditions of the population.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, more than 1,500 tents housing displaced people across Gaza were flooded by heavy rains over the past two days, leaving people exposed to the cold and their belongings damaged.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced and much of the tiny coastal strip is in ruins.
The war was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in Gaza, according to Israeli data.
An Israeli raid closed a major Gaza hospital on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Kamal Adwan Hospital was the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza and WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris says this ‘vital’ lifeline for local Palestinians has disappeared.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in densely populated areas. The military says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Hundreds of thousands live in tents on the coast as winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop below 10C at night. At least six babies and one other person have died of hypothermia, according to the Ministry of Health.
Many displaced Palestinians in central Gaza rely on charity kitchens as their sole provider of food amid aid restrictions and rising prices. AP footage showed a long line of children waiting for rice, the only item served at a kitchen in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday.
“Some of those kitchens close because they don’t receive aid, and others distribute small amounts of food and it’s not enough,” Umm Adham Shaheen, displaced from Gaza City, told the AP.
American and Arab mediators have spent nearly a year trying to broker a ceasefire and the release of the hostages, but those efforts have repeatedly stalled.
Hamas has called for a lasting ceasefire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue fighting until “total victory”.
Israel’s former defense chief resigns from parliament
Former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, who had often held an independent line against the prime minister and his far-right government allies, said on Wednesday he was resigning from parliament.
Netanyahu fired Gallant as defense minister in November after months of disagreements over the direction of the war. But Gallant kept his seat as an elected member of the Knesset.
“As it is on the battlefield, so it is in public service. There are moments in which one must stop, evaluate and choose a direction to achieve the goals,” Gallant said in a televised statement.
Gallant also broke ranks with Netanyahu and his coalition over exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service — a hot-button issue.
The two have clashed publicly before. Netanyahu first fired Gallant in March 2023 after he sought a halt to a highly contested government plan to curtail the Supreme Court’s powers. His sacking sparked mass protests and the prime minister stepped down.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Gallant and Netanyahu, along with a Hamas leader, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict, which Israel has contested.
