© Reuters. A helicopter carrying hostages released as part of a hostage-prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel arrives at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv district, Israel, December 1, 2023. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
By Suhaib Salem and Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli military planes bombed Gaza on Friday after negotiations to extend a week-long truce with Hamas failed, sending wounded and dead Palestinians to hospitals and others onto the streets to search refuge.
Eastern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza came under intense shelling shortly after dawn, with columns of smoke rising into the sky, Reuters journalists in the town said. Residents took to the road with their belongings piled into carts, fleeing to seek refuge further west.
To the north of the enclave, once the main war zone, huge plumes of smoke rose above the ruins, seen from the other side of the fence in Israel. The crackle of gunfire and the sound of explosions echoed above the barking dogs.
Sirens sounded across southern Israel as militants fired rockets from the coastal enclave toward towns.
Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for derailing negotiations, even as the White House pointed the finger at the Palestinian militant group, saying it had failed to produce a new list of hostages to be released for allow an extension of the truce.
The UN said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. “Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian office in Geneva.
Hours after the truce expired, health officials in Gaza reported that 109 people had been killed and dozens more injured in airstrikes.
The Israeli military said its land, air and naval forces had struck more than 200 what it called “terrorist targets” in the enclave since the morning.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he was aboard one of the Israeli warplanes during the assault to keep a close eye on it. “The results are impressive. Hamas only understands force and that is why we will continue to act until we achieve the objectives of the war,” he said.
Egyptian and regional sources told Reuters that Israel had informed several Arab states that it wanted to create a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the Gaza border to prevent future attacks, as part of proposals for the enclave after the end of the war.
Doctors and witnesses said Friday’s shelling was most intense in Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have taken refuge fleeing fighting further north. . Houses in the central and northern areas were also affected.
“Anas, my son! » cried the mother of Anas Anwar al-Masri, a boy with head injuries lying on a stretcher in the corridor of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. “I don’t have anyone but you!”
‘YOU WERE WARNED’
Further south, in Rafah, residents carried several young children, bloodstained and covered in dust, from a house that had been struck. Mohammed Abu-Elneen, whose father owns the house, said it housed people displaced from elsewhere.
At the nearby Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital, the first wave of wounded included men and boys.
Gazans said they feared that the bombing of southern parts of the enclave could herald an expansion of the war into areas that Israel had previously described as safe.
Leaflets dropped on eastern areas of the main southern city, Khan Younis, ordered residents of four towns to evacuate – not to other areas of Khan Younis as in the past, but further south, towards the crowded town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border.
“You must evacuate immediately and go to shelters in the Rafah region. Khan Younis is a dangerous combat zone. You have been warned,” the leaflets written in Arabic said.
Israel published a link to a map showing Gaza divided into hundreds of districts, which it said would be used in the future to indicate which areas are safe.
On another fault line, a Lebanese official said Israeli bombing killed two people Friday in southern Lebanon. And the Lebanese group Hezbollah, backed by Iran and an ally of Hamas, said it had carried out several attacks against Israeli military positions on the border in support of the Palestinians.
The Israeli military said its artillery hit sources of fire coming from Lebanon and that air defense intercepted two launches. Reuters could not confirm any of the accounts from the battlefield.
BLINKEN DECLARES HAMAS RENEWING ITS COMMITMENTS
Each warring side accused the other of causing the collapse of the truce by rejecting conditions to extend the daily release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian detainees.
The pause, which began on November 24, was extended twice, and Israel said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages each day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed, at the eleventh hour, to find a formula to release more, including Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it detained. A Palestinian official said the breakup occurred because of female Israeli soldiers.
Qatar, which has played a central role in mediation efforts, said negotiations were still underway with the Israelis and Palestinians to restore the truce, but that renewed Israeli bombing of Gaza had complicated its efforts.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the end of a trip to the region, said Hamas began firing rockets before the end of the pause in hostilities and had “gone back on the commitments it had taken in terms of the release of certain hostages”.
He added that he met with officials from Arab states and discussed how to create a “sustainable, lasting and secure peace.”
Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to the militant group’s rampage on Oct. 7, when Israel said gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages. Hamas, sworn to destroy Israel, has ruled Gaza since 2007.
Israel’s onslaught devastated much of the territory. Palestinian health authorities, deemed reliable by the United Nations, say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed and thousands more are missing and may be buried under rubble.
