Displaced Palestinians inspect their tents destroyed by Israel’s bombardment, adjunct to an UNRWA facility west of Rafah city, Gaza Strip, on May 28, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli strikes on Rafah have killed at least 16 Palestinians, first responders said May 28, as residents reported an escalation of fighting in the southern Gaza city.

An Israeli incursion launched in early May has caused nearly 1 million to flee from Rafah, most of whom have already been displaced in the war between Israel and Hamas, and who are now seeking refuge in squalid tent camps and war-ravaged areas.

The United States and other close allies of Israel have warned against a full-fledged offensive in the city, with the Biden administration saying it would cross a red line and refusing to provide offensive arms for such an undertaking. On May 24, the International Court of Justice called on Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, an order it has no power to enforce.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead, saying Israeli forces must go into Rafah in order to dismantle Hamas and return hostages taken in the October 7 attack that triggered the war.

The latest strikes occurred in the same area where Israel targeted what it said was a Hamas compound on May 26 night. That strike ignited a fire in a camp for displaced Palestinians and killed at least 45 people, according to local health officials, sparking worldwide outrage.

Mr. Netanyahu said there was a “tragic mishap” on May 26 and the military said it was investigating.

Strikes overnight killed a total of 16 people in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood in northwest Rafah, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Israel says it is carrying out limited operations in eastern Rafah along the Gaza-Egypt border. But residents reported heavy bombardment overnight in western parts of Rafah as well.

“It was a night of horror,” said Abdel-Rahman Abu Ismail, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Tel al-Sultan since December. He said he heard “constant sounds” of explosions overnight and into May 28 morning, with fighter jets and drones flying over the area.

He said it reminded him of the Israeli invasion of of his neighbourhood of Shijaiyah in Gaza City, where Israel launched a heavy bombing campaign before sending in ground forces in late 2023. “We saw this before,” he said.

Sayed al-Masri, a Rafah resident, said many families have been forced to flee their homes and shelters, with most heading for the crowded Mawasi area, where giant tent camps have been set up on a barren coastline, or to Khan Younis, a southern city that suffered heavy damage during months of fighting.

“The situation is worsening” in Rafah, al-Masri said.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said two medical facilities in Tel al-Sultan have been taken out of service because of intense bombing nearby. Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity operating throughout the territory, said the Tel al-Sultan medical centre and the Indonesian Field Hospital were under lockdown, with medics, patients and displaced people trapped inside.

Most of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functioning. The Kuwait Hospital in Rafah shut down on May 27 after a strike near its entrance killed two health workers.

The war began when Hamas and other militants burst into southern Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 civilians and abducting around 250. More than 100 were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel responded to the October 7 attack with a massive air, land and sea offensive that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. Around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced and United Nations officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on May 09, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The top U.N. court said it would hold hearings on May 16 and 17 over a request from South Africa to impose emergency orders on Israel to halt its Rafah offensive.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will hear lawyers from South Africa on May 16, followed by Israel’s response the next day, it said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Pretoria petitioned the ICJ for so-called provisional measures over the incursion into Rafah, asking the court to order Israel to “immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive.”

It also requested the court to order Israel to take “all effective measures” to facilitate the “unimpeded” access of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Nearly 4,50,000 Palestinians have been newly displaced from Rafah in recent days, and around 1,00,000 from northern Gaza, said U.N. agencies which warn that “no place is safe” in the territory.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 35,173 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The ICJ was set up to rule on disputes between states and while its judgements are legally binding, it has little means to enforce them.

For example, the court has ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine, to no avail.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on March 17 to send ground forces into Gaza’s southern Rafah city despite growing international concern over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

Mr. Netanyahu, whose security and war Cabinets were later due to discuss latest international efforts towards a truce deal, stressed that “no amount of international pressure will stop us from realising all the goals of the war”.

“To do this, we will also operate in Rafah,” he told a Cabinet meeting, hours before he was set to meet visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks on the war raging since October 7.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to launch a ground offensive against Hamas militants in Rafah, now home to nearly 1.5 million mostly displaced Gazans sheltering near the Egyptian border.

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has said a Rafah invasion would be a “red line” without credible measures to protect civilians.

U.N. World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch a Rafah assault, warning that “this humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen”.

Envoys were planning to meet in Qatar soon to revive stalled talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

A Hamas proposal calls for an Israeli withdrawal from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza during a six-week truce and for more humanitarian aid, according to an official from the Palestinian group.

Also Read | ‘Bloody’ Ramzan Friday as Gaza strike kills 36 relatives

Israel plans to attend the talks, with Cabinet members due to “decide on the mandate of the delegation in charge of the negotiations before its departure for Doha”, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said, without giving a date for when they would leave.

The war meanwhile raged on, and overnight Israeli bombardment across the Hamas-ruled territory killed at least 61 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The dead included 12 members of the same family whose house was hit in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.

Palestinian girl Leen Thabit, retrieving a white dress from under the rubble of their flattened house, cried as she told AFP her cousin was killed in the strike.

“She’s dead. Only her dress is left,” Ms. Thabit said. “What do they want from us?”

Second aid ship

The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 31,645 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Shelling and clashes were reported in south Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis and elsewhere, and the Israeli Army said its forces had killed “approximately 18 terrorists” in central Gaza since March 16.

More than five months of war and an Israeli siege have led to dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the U.N. has repeatedly warned of looming famine for the coastal territory’s 2.4 million people.

Also Read | Top U.S. Democrat Schumer calls for new elections in Israel, saying Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace

As the flow of aid trucks into Gaza has slowed, a second ship was due to depart from Cyprus along a new maritime corridor to bring food and relief goods, said officials of the island-nation.

On March 16 the U.S. charity World Central Kitchen said its team had finished unloading supplies from a barge towed by Spanish aid vessel Open Arms which had pioneered the sea route.

Jordan on March 17 announced the latest aid airdrop over northern Gaza together with German, U.S. and Egyptian aircraft.

The United Nations has reported particular difficulty in accessing the north, where residents say they have resorted to eating animal fodder, and where some have stormed the few aid trucks that have made it through.

Malnutrition and disease

Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack. Dozens were released during a week-long truce in November, and Israel believes about 130 remain in Gaza including 32 presumed dead.

Mr. Netanyahu has faced domestic pressure over the remaining captives, with protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on March 16 carrying banners urging a “hostage deal now”.

“The civilians… need to demand from their leaders to do the right thing,” said one demonstrator, Omer Keidar, 27.

In Rafah, the crisis has only grown worse, said medical staff at a clinic run by Palestinian volunteers that offers treatment for displaced Gazans.

Also Read | The first ship to use a new sea route approaches Gaza with 200 tons of aid

“We’re facing shortages of medications,” said Dr. Samar Gregea, herself displaced from Gaza City in the north.

“There are a lot of patients in the camp, with all children suffering from malnutrition” and a spike in hepatitis A cases, she told AFP.

“Children require foods high in sugars, like dates, which are currently unavailable.”

Donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts on Wednesday to rush food to war-torn Gaza by land, air and sea after the EU top diplomat said starvation had become “a weapon of war”.

The Israel-Hamas conflict raging since October 7 has caused mass civilian deaths, reduced vast areas to a rubble-strewn wasteland and sparked warnings of looming famine in the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people.

A Spanish charity vessel, the Open Arms, was on its way to Gaza from Cyprus, where it had set sail early on March 12 towing a barge with 200 tonnes of aid, in a first voyage meant to open a maritime corridor.

The flow of aid trucks from Egypt into Gaza has slowed recently — a trend variously blamed on Israel and its security checks of cargo, and on civil unrest in Gaza where desperate crowds have looted aid shipments.

About half a dozen Arab and western nations have airdropped food parcels on parachutes into Gaza, and Morocco has sent a planeload of relief supplies via Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.

The U.N. World Food Programme, trying an alternative land route from southern Israel, sent an initial six aid trucks on March 12 into worst-hit northern Gaza, through a gate in the security fence, the Israeli Army said.

The WFP said it had “delivered enough food for 25,000 people” and demanded that, “with people in northern Gaza on the brink of famine, we need deliveries every day. We need entry points directly into the north.”

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told the U.N. Security Council on March 12 that the humanitarian crisis “is man-made”.

“If we look at alternative ways to provide support, it’s because the land crossings have been artificially closed,” he said, charging that “starvation is being used as a weapon of war”.

‘War on children’

The Gaza war was sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took about 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes about 130 captives remain in Gaza but that 32 of them are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive have killed 31,272 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

At least 88 people were killed over the past 24 hours, it said, adding that “dozens of missing persons are still under the rubble”.

The Israeli Army said its troops were “intensifying operations” in the southern Gaza Strip, including the biggest city there, Khan Yunis.

“In the last 24 hours, there were exchanges of fire between IDF (Israeli army) troops and a terrorist cell consisting of seven terror operatives barricaded inside a compound in the Hamad area of Khan Yunis,” it said.

“In a coordinated strike, the troops killed several of the terrorists, and then directed an aircraft to strike and eliminate the rest of the cell. Weapons were also located in the area.”

Weeks of talks involving U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators had aimed to bring a truce and hostage release deal before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but missed the Monday deadline.

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said that, although talks continued, “we are not near a deal”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his pledge to “destroy Hamas” — including by sending troops into Gaza’s last area so far spared ground operations, far-southern Rafah.

In a speech delivered via video link to a pro-Israel lobby group in the United States, he pledged that “we will finish the job in Rafah while enabling the civilian population to get out of harm’s way”.

The prospect of a Rafah invasion has sparked global alarm because it is crowded with almost 1.5 million people displaced by the war, many sheltering in camps of makeshift tents.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, called for an immediate ceasefire and branded the conflict “a war on children”.

Maritime corridor

Gaza’s dire food shortages after more than five months of war and siege have killed 27 people through malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

As aid agencies warn the truck deliveries and airdrops fall far short of meeting the desperate need, European nations and the United States have announced plans to send more relief goods by sea.

U.S. President Joe Biden last week announced plans for the military to build a pier on Gaza’s coast, and four U.S. Army vessels left a base in Virginia on March 12 carrying about 100 soldiers and equipment.

The offshore platform and pier are expected to be up and running “at the 60-day mark”, U.S. Army Brigadier General Brad Hinson told journalists.

The Open Arms meanwhile continued the almost 400 kilometre (250 mile) journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Gaza, where U.S. charity World Central Kitchen said work was underway to build a makeshift jetty.

Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said on March 12 that “if all goes according to plan… we have already put in place the mechanism for a second and much bigger cargo”.

“And then we’ll be working towards making this a more systematic exercise with increased volumes.”

A man waves a homemade sparkler firework as displaced Palestinians prepare their tents for Ramadan, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip March 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Palestinians prepared for Ramadan in sombre mood with heightened security measures by Israeli police and the spectre of war and hunger in Gaza overshadowing the normally festive Muslim holy month as talks to secure a ceasefire stalled.

Thousands of police have been deployed around the narrow streets of the Old City in Jerusalem, where tens of thousands of worshippers are expected every day at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of the holiest sites in Islam.

The area, considered the most sacred place by Jews who know it as Temple Mount, has been a longstanding flashpoint for trouble and was one of the starting points of the last war in 2021 between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza.

That 10-day conflict has been dwarfed by the current war, which is now in its sixth month. It began on Oct. 7 when thousands of Hamas fighters stormed into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, by Israeli tallies.

Israel’s relentless campaign in Gaza has drawn increasing alarm across the world as the growing risk of famine threatens to add to a death toll that has already passed 31,000.

After some confusion last month when hard-right Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he wanted restrictions on worshippers at Al Aqsa, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the numbers admitted would be similar to last year.

Also Read | Israel strikes landmark residential tower in southern Rafah as truce talks stall

“This is our mosque and we must take care of it,” said Azzam Al-Khatib, director general of the Jerusalem Waqf, the religious foundation that oversees Al Aqsa. “We must protect the presence of Muslims at this mosque, who should be able to enter in big numbers peacefully and safely.”

Depending on lunar observations, Ramadan will begin on Monday or Tuesday of this week.

But in contrast to previous years, the usual decorations around the Old City have not been put up and there was a similar sombre tone in towns across the occupied West Bank, where around 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with security forces, or Jewish settlers since the start of the war.

“We decided this year that the Old City of Jerusalem won’t be decorated out of respect for the blood of our children and the elders and the martyrs,” said Ammar Sider, a community leader in the Old City.

Police said they were working to ensure a peaceful Ramadan and had taken extra measures to crack down on what they described as provocative and distorted information on social media networks and had arrested 20 people suspected of incitement to terrorism.

“The Israel Police will continue to act and allow for the observance of Ramadan prayers safely on the Temple Mount, while maintaining security and safety in the area,” police said in a statement.

For the rest of the Muslim world, Israel’s policing of Al Aqsa has long been among the most bitterly resented issues and last month, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Palestinians to march to the mosque at the start of Ramadan.

Last year, clashes that erupted when police entered the mosque compound, drew condemnation from the Arab League as well as Saudi Arabia, with which Israel had been seeking to normalise diplomatic ties, extending its push to build ties with regional powers including the United Arab Emirates.

Ceasefire hopes

Hopes for a ceasefire, which would have allowed Ramadan to pass peacefully and enabled the return of at least some of the 134 Israeli hostages held in Gaza appear to have been disappointed, with talks in Cairo apparently stalled.

In the ruins of Gaza itself, where half the 2.3 million population is squeezed into the southern city of Rafah, many living under plastic tents and facing a severe shortage of food, the mood was correspondingly sombre.

“We made no preparations to welcome Ramadan because we have been fasting for five months now,” said Maha, a mother of five, who would normally have filled her home with decorations and stocked her refrigerator with supplies for the evening Iftar celebrations when people break their fast.

“There is no food, we only have some canned food and rice, most of the food items are being sold for imaginary high prices,” she said via chat app from Rafah, where she is sheltering with her family.

Also Read | Netanyahu ‘hurting Israel’ by not doing more to avert civilian deaths in Gaza: Biden

In the West Bank, which has seen record violence for more than two years and a further surge since the war in Gaza, the stakes are also high, with volatile towns like Jenin, Tulkarm or Nablus braced for further clashes.

In Israel, fears of car ramming or stabbing attacks by Palestinians, have also led to heightened security preparations.

For many of those waiting, there is little alternative but to hope for peace.

“Ramadan is a blessed month despite the fact this year is not like every year, but we are steadfast and patient, and we will welcome the month of Ramadan as usual, with decorations, songs, with prayers, fasting,” said Nehad El-Jed, who was displaced with her family in Gaza.

“Next Ramadan, we wish for Gaza to come back, hopefully all the destruction and the siege in Gaza will change, and all will come back in a better condition.”

Palestinians walk by a residential building destroyed in an Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on March 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Israel struck one of the largest residential towers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 9, residents said, stepping up pressure on the last area of the enclave it has not yet invaded and where over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

The 12-floor building, located some 500m from the border with Egypt, was damaged in the strike. Dozens of families were made homeless though no casualties were reported, according to residents. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident.

One of the tower’s 300 residents told Reuters that Israel gave them a 30-minute warning to flee the building at night.

“People were startled, running down the stairs, some fell, it was chaos. People left their belongings and money,” said Mohammad Al-Nabrees, adding that among those who tripped down the stairs during the panicked evacuation was a friend’s pregnant wife.

A Rafah-based official with the Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority that has limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, another Palestinian territory, said he feared that hitting the Rafah tower was a sign of an imminent Israeli invasion.

Five months into Israel’s unrelenting air and ground assault on Gaza, health authorities said nearly 31,000 Palestinians had been killed, over 72,500 were wounded and thousands were trapped under rubble.

The offensive has plunged the Palestinian territory, already reeling from a 17-year Israel-led blockade, into a humanitarian catastrophe. Much of it has been reduced to rubble and most of the 2.3 million population have been displaced, with the U.N. warning of disease and starvation.

Three Palestinian children died of dehydration and malnutrition at the northern Al Shifa Hospital overnight, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra. Mr. Qidra said this raised to 23 the number of Palestinians who had died of similar causes in nearly 10 days.

Also Read | The latest talks on Gaza have ended with no breakthrough, officials say

“This brutal war has ruptured any sense of a shared humanity,” said Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

She called for an end of hostilities to allow for meaningful aid distribution in Gaza, for Hamas to release all hostages without conditions and for Israel to treat Palestinians in its custody humanely and to permit them to contact their families.

The war was triggered by an October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, where 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of 134 hostages still in Gaza seemed to stall ahead of the hoped-for deadline, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on or around March 10.

A Hamas source told Reuters that the group’s delegation was “unlikely” to make another visit to Cairo over the weekend for talks. Hamas blamed the lack of progress on Israel, which has so far refused to give guarantees or commitments to end the war or pull out forces from the Gaza Strip.

In a speech marking Martyrs’ and Veterans’ Day in Egypt on March 9, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the cost of rebuilding Gaza could exceed $90 billion.

In a statement summarizing its operations in Gaza over the past day, the Israeli military said it conducted arrests, located weapons and killed over 30 fighters in Khan Younis, including in the Hamad area, in central Gaza and in the area of Beit Hanoun in the north.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 82 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the last day.

In Khan Younis, medics said at least 23 people were killed in military raids on homes and in Israeli shelling of a housing project in the Hamad area of the city. In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli fire killed a Palestinian fisherman along the beach, medics said.

Smoke billows following Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 25, 2024, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen clashed throughout the Gaza Strip over the weekend, as mediators picked up the pace of talks on a possible ceasefire to free hostages held by Hamas and bring a measure of Ramadan respite to the battered enclave.

Prospects for securing any truce looked uncertain, however, with Israel saying it was, in parallel, planning to expand its sweep to destroy Hamas, while the Islamist faction stood firm on its demand for a permanent end to the nearly five-month-old war.

Residents said Israeli forces shelled several areas of the enclave as tanks rolled into Beit Lahiya and soldiers and gunmen waged running battles in the Zeitoun sector of Gaza City — both in the north, which had been conquered early in the offensive.

At least 86 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes since Saturday, medics said on Sunday. Israel’s military said two soldiers died in fighting in south Gaza and that its forces killed or captured Palestinian gunmen in Zeitoun and elsewhere.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his war Cabinet for a briefing late on Saturday by intelligence chiefs who returned from a meeting with Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators in Paris about a possible second Gaza ceasefire.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” that negotiators for the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel “came to an understanding” on the basic contours of a hostage deal during talks in Paris.

The deal is still under negotiation, said Mr. Sullivan, who added there will have to be indirect discussions by Qatar and Egypt with Hamas.

Mr. Netanyahu told CBS’ “Face the Nation” it was not clear yet whether a hostage deal would materialise from the talks, declining to discuss specifics but saying Hamas needed to make more reasonable demands.

“They are in another planet. But if they come down to a reasonable situation, then yes we’ll have a hostage deal. I hope so,” he said.

Doha talks this week

Egyptian security sources said there would be more talks this week in Doha, with mediators shuttling between Hamas and Israeli delegates, and a follow-up round in Cairo. There was no immediate confirmation of that from Israel, Hamas or Qatar.

The first pause in fighting, in November, saw the release of around half of the 253 people Hamas seized during an Oct. 7 cross-border killing spree that sparked the war. In that deal, Israel freed three times the number of Palestinians from its security prisons and admitted more humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Israeli media, citing unnamed officials, reported there was a framework for the return of around a third of the 130 remaining hostages over a six-week truce covering the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. There was no formal confirmation from either side.

Palestinian officials said Hamas was insisting on Israel calling off the offensive and withdrawing forces under any deal. Israel signalled intent to move into one of the last towns where Hamas, which is sworn to its destruction, has intact forces.

“We are working to achieve another framework for the release of our abductees, as well as the completion of the elimination of the Hamas battalions in Rafah,” Netanyahu said on Facebook, referring to the town in the far south of Gaza near the border with Egypt.

This week, he added, the Israeli security cabinet would approve military plans for Rafah – including the evacuation of more than a million displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there, and whose fate worries world powers.

Almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, Gaza medical officials say. The Hamas raid of Oct. 7 killed 1,200 people in Israel, which has also lost 241 soldiers in Gaza ground fighting that followed, according to official tallies.