The Israeli Army dropped thousands of leaflets over Gaza City on July 10 urging all residents to flee a heavy offensive that has rocked the main city of the besieged Palestinian territory.

The leaflets, addressed to “everyone in Gaza City”, set out designated escape routes to the south and warned that the urban area, previously home to more than half a million people, would “remain a dangerous combat zone”.

The warning follows three partial evacuation orders and came as Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, have fought Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the heaviest combat operations the city has seen in months.

In one operation, the Army said it had killed militants and found weapons inside the long-vacated Gaza City headquarters of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Elsewhere across Gaza, deadly strikes have hit four schools used as shelters in four days, sparking international outrage.

The upsurge in fighting and displacement came as mediator Qatar was due to resume talks on Wednesday toward a truce and hostage release deal to end the war, now grinding on into its 10th month.

An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha for the talks, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity.

CIA director William Burns was also expected in the Qatari capital, after holding talks in Cairo on Tuesday.

The latest fighting in Gaza has newly displaced 3,50,000 civilians, said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, who spoke before the latest leaflet drop and said “there is absolutely no safe space in Gaza”.

One woman carrying her scant belongings through the bombed-out wasteland, Nimr al-Jamal, told AFP on Tuesday that “this is the 12th time” her family has had to flee.

“How many times can we endure this? A thousand times? Where will we end up?”

Hamas, whose October 7 attack started the war, has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of escalating the fighting to derail the latest ceasefire talks.

Also Read | Israel’s new strikes in Gaza City threaten truce talks: Hamas

The Islamist group’s armed wing said this week the resurgent battles in Gaza City were “the most intense in months”, while deadly strikes have also hit elsewhere across the territory.

Israel’s military said it had “eliminated” Palestinian militants operating from inside the city’s UNRWA headquarters and found “large amounts of weapons” inside.

The U.N. agency’s head of communications Juliette Touma told AFP it was hard to know if people were sheltering in the building “as we don’t have regular access to Gaza City”.

‘Death and misery’

The Israeli Army said it was reviewing an attack on Tuesday in which hospital sources said at least 29 people were killed in a school used as a shelter in the southern Khan Younis area.

Germany said the strike was “unacceptable” and called for a rapid investigation into the incident.

“Civilians, especially children, must not get caught in the crossfire,” the Foreign Ministry posted on X. “The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and an investigation must come quickly.”

Gaza’s Hamas government said a “majority” of the dead were women and children.

AFP footage showed the wounded being rushed to the nearby Nasser hospital, many screaming in pain, as relatives wailed in grief for the dead.

One wounded man, Osama Abu Daqqa, recounted that “suddenly the strike hit, people were injured and martyred and there was no one to help them”.

Also Read | Airstrike kills 25 in southern Gaza as Israeli assault on Gaza City shuts down medical facilities

Another survivor, Mohamed Sukkar, said that “without any warning, rockets were fired at a group of people who were browsing the internet. They were not part of the resistance nor were they armed, they were all civilians.”

The military said that the strike had killed a Hamas “terrorist” who had taken part in the October 7 attack and that it was “looking into the reports that civilians were harmed, adjacent to the Al Awda school”, which it acknowledged was “near the location of the strike”.

“The incident is under review.”

Three previous Israeli strikes since Saturday on Gaza schools used by displaced Palestinians have killed a total of at least 20 people, according to Gaza officials and rescue services.

Mr. Lazzarini wrote on social media site X that “schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery”.

‘She is alone’

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,295 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Israel has also imposed a punishing siege on Gaza’s 2.4 million people, eased only by sporadic aid deliveries.

Independent U.N. rights experts on Tuesday accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that constituted “a form of genocidal violence”.

Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva accused the panel’s members of “spreading misinformation” and “supporting Hamas propaganda”.

Elad Goren of Israel’s COGAT, the military department handling aid to Gaza, said an average of 250 trucks were entering through the Kerem Shalom crossing, half of the daily capacity — a shortfall he blamed on problems on the Palestinian side.

In Israel, meanwhile, protesters have regularly taken to the streets to demand the Netanyahu government strike a deal to bring home the hostages.

Some of the captives’ relatives spoke about their fear, especially of the risk of female captives being abused, at a virtual press conference by the Hostages Families Forum.

“My life stopped on the 7th of October,” said Simona Steinbrecher, mother of the hostage Doron Steinbrecher. “I know she is alone there and I cannot help her.”

Smoke rises from Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel on July 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.N. rights experts on July 9 accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza.

“Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 independent United Nations experts said in a statement.

The U.N. has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip.

But the experts, including the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, insisted there was no denying famine was under way.

“Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since 7 October, the majority being children,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

Also Read | UNICEF finds 90% of Gaza’s children lack food needed for proper growth

Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva slammed the statement, charging that “Mr. Fakhri, and many so-called ‘experts’ who joined (him), are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation, as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organisation from scrutiny”.

Complicit

The U.N. experts meanwhile listed three children who had recently died “from malnutrition”, after a number of others were said to have starved to death in northern Gaza earlier this year.

Six-month-old Fayez Ataya and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi had died on May 30 and June 1 at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, while nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Khan Yunis, they said.

“With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they said.

The experts decried that the world had not done more to avert this disaster.

“When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on 24 February and 4 March respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said.

“The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths.”

“Inaction is complicity.”

Gaza has been facing a deep humanitarian crisis since the war erupted following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

‘Starvation warfare’

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that 60 cases of severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting —the most deadly form of malnutrition — had been detected last week at the Kamal Adwan paediatric hospital in the north of the Strip.

The U.N. has long been warning of looming famine, especially in the north, but one has not been officially declared.

Also Read | The politics of humanitarian aid

The Israeli mission highlighted Tuesday that the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership determined that famine had not materialised after aid access improved somewhat.

“Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip,” it said, claiming Hamas “intentionally steal and hide aid from civilians”.

Hamas authorities meanwhile issued a statement Tuesday describing a “humanitarian catastrophe and escalating famine”.

They accused “the terrorist Israeli government” of continuing “its policy of starvation”, and “preventing the entry of food aid trucks for the 64th consecutive day”.

“Continued starvation warfare threatens a humanitarian disaster and further loss of innocent children,” that statement warned.

Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strip’s largest city in pursuit of militants who had regrouped there, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing on July 8 from an area ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-long war.

Hamas warned that the latest raids and displacement in Gaza City could lead to the collapse of long-running negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release, after the two sides had appeared to have narrowed the gaps in recent days.

Israeli troops were again battling militants in areas that the Army said had been largely cleared months ago in northern Gaza. The military ordered evacuations ahead of the raids, but Palestinians said nowhere feels safe. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are packed into sweltering tent camps.

Also Read | Israel targets Gaza school for second day, killing four

Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza in the first weeks of the war and has prevented most people from returning. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain, living in shelters or the shells of homes.

“We fled in the darkness amid heavy strikes,” said Sayeda Abdel-Baki, a mother of three who had sheltered with relatives in the Daraj neighborhood. “This is my fifth displacement.”

Residents reported artillery and tank fire, as well as airstrikes. Gaza’s Health Ministry, with limited access to the north, did not immediately report casualties.

Israel issued additional evacuation orders for areas in other neighborhoods of central Gaza City. The military said it had intelligence showing that militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group were in the area, and called on residents to head south to the city of Deir al-Balah.

Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians. In Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighborhood that has seen weeks of fighting, the military said troops raided and destroyed schools and a clinic that had been converted into militant compounds.

The war has decimated large swaths of urban landscape and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe.

Israel and Hamas seem to be the closest they have been in months to agreeing to a cease-fire deal that would pause the fighting in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.

CIA Director William Burns returned to the region Monday for talks in Cairo, according to Egypt’s state-run Qahera TV, which is close to the security services. An Israeli delegation was also heading to the Egyptian capital, Israeli media reported.

But obstacles remain, even after Hamas agreed to relent on its key demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any agreement. A key part of that shift, officials told AP, is the level of destruction caused by Israel’s rolling offensive.

Hamas still wants mediators to guarantee that negotiations conclude with a permanent cease-fire, according to two officials with knowledge of the talks. The current draft says the mediators — the United States, Qatar and Egypt — “will do their best” to ensure that negotiations lead to an agreement to wind down the war.

Israel has rejected any deal that would force it to end the war with Hamas intact — a condition Netanyahu reiterated Sunday.

Hamas on Monday said it is “offering flexibility and positivity” to facilitate a deal, while accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “putting more obstacles in the way of negotiations.”

Meanwhile, Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, warned mediators of “catastrophic consequences” if Israel continued its operations in Gaza City, saying Netanyahu and the army would bear “full responsibility” for the collapse of the talks, the group said in a subsequent statement.

The two officials said there’s also an impasse around whether Hamas can choose the high-profile prisoners held by Israel that it wants released in exchange for hostages. Some prisoners were convicted of killing Israelis, and Israel does not want Hamas to determine who is released. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.

Inside Gaza, residents saw no end to their suffering.

Maha Mahfouz fled her home with her two children and many neighbors in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood. She said their area was not included in the latest evacuation orders but “we are panicked because the bombing and gunfire are very close to us.”

Fadel Naeem, the director of the Al-Ahli hospital, said patients fled the facility even though there was no evacuation order for the surrounding area. He said those in critical condition had been evacuated to other hospitals in northern Gaza.

Marwan al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital, said it received 80 patients and wounded people from Al-Ahli who were packed into “every corner.”

“Many cases require urgent surgeries. Many cases suffer from direct shots in the head and require intensive care. Fuel and medical supplies are dwindling,” he said in a text message. He said the hospital also received 16 bodies of people killed in the Israeli incursion, half of them women and children.

Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, said the neighborhoods of Tufah, Daraj and Shijaiyah had become inaccessible because of Israeli bombing. In a voice message, he said the military shelled houses in Gaza City’s Jaffa area and first responders “saw people lying on the ground and were not able to retrieve them.”

The war has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Hamas’ cross-border raid on October 7 killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. The militants took roughly 250 people hostage. About 120 are still in captivity, with about a third said to be dead.

Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes on Tuesday on southern Gaza and battled militants after issuing an evacuation order which a UN agency said would impact 2,50,000 Palestinians.

Witnesses reported intense bombing and shelling around Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s main city, from which Israeli troops withdrew in early April after a devastating months-long battle.

A hospital source in the city said shelling killed eight persons and wounded more than 30 others.

The bombardment came after a rocket barrage at southern Israel on Monday morning claimed by the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas.

This was followed by an order to evacuate most areas east of Khan Younis and in Rafah along the borders with Israel and Egypt.

The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees estimated Tuesday that a quarter of a million people had been impacted since Israel’s army issued a new evacuation order for parts of southern Gaza a day earlier.

“We’ve seen people moving, families moving, people starting to pack up their belongings and try to leave this area,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.

The agency “estimates that around 250,000 people have been impacted by these orders”, she said, adding: “We expect these numbers to grow”.

Her comments came after the Israeli army Monday issued a new evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in southern Gaza.

An AFP photographer saw Palestinians leave eastern Khan Yunis on foot, in cars and on horse or donkey carts, carrying their belongings with them.

Some displaced people with nowhere to go were sleeping on the streets, witnesses said.

Ahmad Najjar, a resident of the town of Bani Suhaila, said the Israeli evacuation order had caused “a large displacement of residents” and spurred “fear and extreme anxiety”.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees estimates that “around 2,50,000 people have been impacted by these orders”, said UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge.

“We expect that almost all of these people will move from this area,” she said.

Six consecutive days of intense battles followed a similar evacuation order issued last week for the Gaza City district of Shujaiya.

An AFP correspondent reported artillery shelling in the northern area on Tuesday, and witnesses said gun battles raged on.

The military said its forces were operating in Shujaiya, central Gaza and Rafah, where aircraft carried out strikes and troops “ambushed an armed terrorist squad” in a car and killed them.

Strikes a ‘daily routine’

Over the past day, the Israeli air force “struck approximately 30 terror targets” across Gaza, said a military statement.

In Shujaiya, Palestinian militants “were eliminated and dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites above and below ground were dismantled, including tunnel shafts”, it added.

In central Gaza, witnesses said strikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp where the Palestinian Red Crescent reported at least one dead, a child.

Mohamed al-Jalees, displaced from Shujaiya to Nuseirat, helped clear the rubble and search for survivors.

“A missile struck our neighbours’ house,” he told AFP. “We rushed to check on them, and some were rescued alive (but) we found a martyred child.”

“I have been displaced here for nine months… This is our daily routine.”

Other parts of the Gaza Strip were reeling from continued fighting nearly nine months into the war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and has led to a dire humanitarian crisis.

Months of on-and-off talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have made little progress, even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared more than a week ago that the “intense phase” of the war was winding down.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that “we’ve heard the Israelis talk about a significant downshift in their operations in Gaza”.

“It remains to be seen.”

The latest order to leave parts of southern Gaza follows an evacuation of Rafah nearly two months ago which had signalled the start of a long-feared Israeli offensive that has uprooted many Palestinians and blocked a key aid route.

‘Failure’

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive aimed at eradicating the Palestinians militants in Gaza has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The military announced two soldiers were killed in central Gaza, taking to 319 its death toll since ground operations began in late October.

Israeli authorities on Monday released Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital — the territory’s largest medical complex, ravaged by Israeli raids — along with dozens of other detainees returned to Gaza for treatment.

Abu Salmiya said he had suffered “severe torture” during his detention.

“Several inmates died in interrogation centres and were deprived of food and medicine,” he said after his release.

Israel has accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals as a cover for military operations, claims Gaza militants have rejected.

Netanyahu said the release had been made without his knowledge, and that Abu Salmiya belongs “in prison” because Israeli hostages were “murdered and held” in the hospital.

The director’s return to Gaza was “a serious mistake and a moral failure”, Netanyahu said.

According to Abu Salmiya, Israel brought no charges against him during his seven-month detention.

Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said the release was “to free up places in detention centres”.

Those sent back to Gaza “represent a lesser danger” and were not directly involved in attacks on Israeli civilians, it said.

West Bank:

An Israeli citizen mistakenly entered the Palestinian town of Qalandiya, situated between Jerusalem and Ramallah, in West Bank and was soon met with aggression from local residents, leading to a violent confrontation.

Videos circulating on social media show a mob of Palestinians chasing the Israeli vehicle, hurling stones at it. The driver attempted to flee but ultimately lost control, crashing into a concrete divider near a military checkpoint, a Times of Israel report said. The man reportedly suffered minor injuries before being rescued and transported to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital.

היהודי הגיע פצוע למחסום קלנדיה, לאחר שנזרקו אבנים לרכבו, והתנגש בבטונדות של המעבר. כוחות מגב משטרה ומד״א הוקפצו לאירוע.
המשך לקלנדייה pic.twitter.com/IpGOuCn7Ig

— כל החדשות בזמן אמת (@Saher95755738) June 29, 2024

Other footage revealed that the vehicle was set ablaze by the Palestinian attackers.

The car of the Jew who accidentally entered Qalandia was set on fire. רכבו של היהודי שנכנס בטעות לקלנדיה, הוצת. pic.twitter.com/PAZkT3z9cY

— Rat Bastard (@RRespawned) June 29, 2024

This incident comes amid a backdrop of escalating violence in the West Bank, an area under Israeli occupation since 1967. Last week, the Israeli military reported the death of a soldier and serious injury to another during an operation in Jenin, a city known for its militant presence. The Israeli army frequently conducts raids in Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp as part of its ongoing security operations.

The West Bank has seen a significant surge in violence, especially following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on October 7. Palestinian officials report that at least 553 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the conflict began. Meanwhile, attacks by Palestinians have resulted in the deaths of at least 15 Israelis, including soldiers, in the same period, according to news agency AFP.

Israeli army straps Palestinian on military jeep during raid in Jenin, in this screengrab from a video, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, June 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli troops tied a wounded Palestinian to a military vehicle during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the Army said on June 23, admitting that soldiers had violated operational procedures.

Footage of the incident, which occurred on Saturday, has gone viral and shows a man strapped horizontally to the bonnet of a military jeep as it passes through a narrow alley.

Medics identified the Palestinian as Mujahid Raed Abbadi, 24, who said he lives in the Jenin refugee camp.

The military said a Palestinian man was wounded during a “counterterrorism operation” to arrest wanted suspects in the area of Wadi Burqin, between the town of Burqin and Jenin.

During an exchange of fire between troops and militants in Burqin’s Jabriyat neighbourhood, a Palestinian was wounded and apprehended, the military said in a statement.

The statement referred to him as a “suspect”, but did not specify any accusations against Mr. Abbadi, who medics said was being treated at Jenin’s Ibn Sina hospital, and not in Israeli custody.

The military said: “In violation of orders and standard operating procedures, the suspect was taken by the forces while tied on top of a vehicle.”

He was later transferred to the Palestinian Red Crescent for treatment, it said.

“The conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not conform to the values of the IDF (military),” the statement said.

“The incident will be investigated and dealt with accordingly.”

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, suggested the troops were using Mr. Abbadi to shield themselves from gunfire.

“#HumanShielding in action”, Albanese wrote on social media platform X, sharing footage of the incident.

At the hospital, Mr. Abbadi said he was hit and wounded as he stepped out of his uncle’s house in Jabriyat.

“I tried to withdraw and get inside the house, but they started shooting”, hitting him in the hand, Mr. Abbadi said in his hospital bed.

‘Stomped my head’

He said he fell to the ground in an area behind the military jeep and was hit once more, with a bullet penetrating his leg.

According to Mr. Abbadi, rescuers or medics were unable to reach him for more than two hours as he lay on the ground.

“I started crawling” trying to escape as fighting continued around him, he said, before the Israeli troops noticed him.

“When they (the soldiers) arrived they stomped on my head and hit my face, my injured leg and hand,” Mr. Abbadi recalled.

“They were laughing and playing while they hit me.”

The soldiers lifted him and threw him on the ground before tying him to the bonnet of the jeep, he said.

Bahaa Abu Hammad, the doctor treating Mr. Abbadi at Ibn Sina hospital, said “he has burns on his back from neck to lower back” from being tied to the military jeep in the scorching summer heat.

Jenin has long been a stronghold for Palestinian militant groups, and the Israeli Army routinely carries out raids in the city and an adjacent refugee camp.

Violence in the West Bank, which had already surged before the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, has only escalated since.

At least 553 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war broke out, according to Palestinian officials.

Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 14 Israelis in the West Bank over the same period, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The Gaza Strip has been gripped by more than eight months of war since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants took 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.

Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has since killed at least 37,598 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Jerusalem:

Israeli troops tied a wounded Palestinian man to a military vehicle during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the army said Sunday, admitting that soldiers had violated operational procedures.

Footage of the incident, which occurred on Saturday, has gone viral and shows a Jenin resident strapped horizontally to the bonnet of a military jeep as it passes through a narrow alley.

The military said the Palestinian was wounded during a “counterterrorism operation” launched to apprehend wanted suspects.

During an exchange of fire between troops and militants, one of the suspects was wounded and apprehended, the military said in a statement.

“In violation of orders and standard operating procedures, the suspect was taken by the forces while tied on top of a vehicle,” the statement said. 

“The conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not conform to the values of the IDF (military),” it added.

“The incident will be investigated and dealt with accordingly,” the military said, adding that the wounded man was transferred to the Palestinian Red Crescent for treatment.

Jenin has long been a stronghold for Palestinian groups, and the Israeli army routinely carries out raids in the city and adjacent refugee camp.

Violence in the West Bank, which had already surged before the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, has only escalated since.

At least 549 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war broke out, according to Palestinian officials.

Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 14 Israelis in the West Bank over the same period, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The Gaza Strip has been gripped by more than eight months of war since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants took 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.

Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has since killed at least 37,551 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Smoke billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 19, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed in a shell attack on June 21 that damaged its Gaza office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced persons living in tents.

The ICRC did not say who fired the “heavy calibre projectiles” but in a statement on social media platform X said the shells “damaged the structure of the ICRC office”.

It said 22 bodies and 45 wounded had been taken to a nearby Red Cross field hospital after the shelling, and there were “reports of additional casualties”.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said there were 25 dead and 50 injured in the shelling which it blamed on Israel. The ministry said Israeli shelling had “targeted the tents of the displaced in the Al-Mawasi area” which is around the ICRC base.

An Israeli Defence Force spokesman did not acknowledge any role in the incident but said it was “under review”.

“An initial inquiry conducted suggests that there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF in the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi. The incident is under review,” the spokesman told AFP.

The ICRC said: “Heavy-calibre projectiles landed within metres of the office and residences of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Friday afternoon.”

“Firing so dangerously close to humanitarian structures, of whose locations the parties to the conflict are aware and which are clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem, puts the lives of civilians and Red Cross staff at risk,” the body added.

“This grave security incident is one of several in recent days,” it added.

“Previously stray bullets have reached ICRC structures. We decry these incidents that put the lives of humanitarians and civilians at risk.”

The ICRC has made increasingly desperate calls for Israel and Hamas to respect international law and protect civilians caught in the midst of the conflict that erupted with the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Calling on both sides to do more to protect civilians “regardless of which side they are on”, ICRC head Mirjana Spoljaric said it was “the line between humanity and barbarity”.

Israeli tanks mounted raids across Rafah in defiance of the World Court for a second day on May 29, after Washington said the assault did not amount to a major ground operation in the southern Gazan city that U.S. officials have warned Israel to avoid.

Israel sent its tanks into the heart of Rafah for the first time on Tuesday, despite an order from the International Court of Justice to end its attacks on the city, where many Palestinians had taken refuge from widespread bombardment.

Editorial | Punishing Hamas: On Israel and the ICJ ruling

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, reiterated its opposition to a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah but said on Tuesday it did not believe such an operation was under way.

Rafah residents said on Wednesday that Israeli tanks had pushed into Tel Al-Sultan in western Rafah and Yibna and near Shaboura in the centre before retreating towards a buffer zone on the border with Egypt, in contrast with offensives elsewhere.

Israel’s military controlled three quarters of the buffer zone and aimed to control all of it to prevent Hamas smuggling in weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said.

He expected fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024 at least, he said, signalling Israel was not ready to heed international calls to agree a ceasefire with the Hamas militants who run Gaza and exchange the hostages they hold for Palestinian prisoners.

The armed wings of Hamas and its allies Islamic Jihad said they confronted the invading forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs and blew up previously planted explosive devices.

Also read | The ICJ ruling on Israel’s Rafah offensive and its implications | Explained

The Israeli military said three soldiers were killed and three others badly wounded in combat in southern Gaza, without elaborating. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan radio said they were hurt by an explosive device set off in a building in Rafah.

Palestinian health officials said several people were wounded by Israeli fire in eastern Rafah and stores of aid were set ablaze. Residents said constant Israeli bombardment overnight destroyed many homes in the area, from where most people have fled after orders by Israel to evacuate.

Some residents reported seeing what they described as unmanned robotic armoured vehicles opening fire from machine guns in some parts of the city.

Internet and mobile signals went down in parts of both east and west amid heavy Israeli air and ground bombardment, the pro-Hamas Shehab news agency, residents and other journalists said. The Israeli military said it could not confirm the reports.

In northern Gaza, tanks shelled several Gaza City neighbourhoods, and forces thrust deeper into Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight biggest historic refugee camps, where residents said large residential districts were destroyed.

Healthcare needed immediately in Rafah and North Gaza, Palestinian Health Ministry says

Gaza’s Health Ministry said several hospitals in areas where the army is operating had stopped functioning. Spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra called for immediate safe pathways for fuel, medical aid and medical teams to Rafah and northern Gaza.

“The Israeli occupation deliberately finished off the healthcare presence in Rafah and the north,” Qidra’s statement said adding that there was no help for people wounded there.

Around a million Palestinians who had taken shelter in Rafah at the southern end of the Gaza Strip from Israel’s offensives elsewhere have now fled after Israeli orders to evacuate, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA reported on Tuesday.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it had evacuated its medical teams from its field hospital in the Al-Mawasi area, a designated civilian evacuation zone, citing “continued artillery and air bombardments” in the vicinity.

The World Court said in its ruling on Friday that Israel had not explained how it would keep the Rafah evacuees safe and provide food, water and medicine. Israel said the order allowed room for some military action to root out Hamas fighters there.

In the nearby city of Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed three people overnight, including Salama Baraka, a former senior Hamas police officer, medics and Hamas media said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said one of its staff, Issam Aqel, was killed in an Israeli air strike on his house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, taking to 30 the number of staff killed since Oct 7, at least 17 of them killed on duty.

Israel delivered its latest ceasefire and hostage release proposal to Qatar, and Qatar was to provide it to Hamas on Tuesday, a person familiar with the issue said. There was no immediate word on Wednesday from Hamas, which has said talks are pointless unless Israel ends its offensive on Rafah.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza , the enclave’s health ministry said.

Israel launched its air and ground war after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Malnutrition is widespread in Gaza as aid deliveries have slowed to a trickle, with international aid agencies accusing Israel of blocking their distribution attempts and Israel blaming the agencies.

In a further blow to aid efforts, part of a new aid pier put in place by the U.S. military off Gaza’s coast broke off, probably due to bad weather, putting it out of operation temporarily, two U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

New Delhi:

The Rafah refugee camp in Gaza witnessed scenes of horror and devastation in the wake of an Israeli airstrike on Sunday. Tents were engulfed in flames, and the cries of burn victims filled the air after the attack, which the Gaza Health Ministry attributed to Israeli forces targeting displaced Palestinians seeking refuge in camps. 

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that the death count had risen to 45 from the overnight strikes, which ignited tents and sparked widespread condemnation across the globe. The agency described the aftermath as a “massacre,” with many bodies charred beyond recognition and numerous victims suffering severe injuries.

“We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs,” said Mohammad al-Mughayyir, an official from the civil defence agency, as quoted by news agency AFP. “We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women, and the elderly.”

Footage captured by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society showed chaotic scenes as paramedics worked tirelessly to evacuate the wounded, including many children. The night was filled with the sounds of sirens and the anguished cries of survivors.

“We had just finished evening prayers,” recalled one survivor. “Our children were asleep when we heard a loud sound, and suddenly there was fire all around us. The children were screaming… the sound was terrifying.”

The Israeli army claimed that their aircraft had targeted a Hamas compound in Rafah, resulting in the deaths of two senior Hamas operatives, Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar. They acknowledged reports of civilian casualties due to the strike and the subsequent fire, stating that the incident was under investigation.

The airstrike provoked strong reactions from neighbouring Arab nations. Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Qatar condemned the attack, with Qatar warning that it could hinder ongoing efforts to revive truce and hostage release talks in the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has been ongoing since October 7.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) described the attack as “horrifying” and shared on social media that the images from the site were “yet another testament” to the dire conditions in Gaza. Multiple videos showed fires raging through the camp and people desperately pulling bodies from the rubble.

By morning, the charred remains of tents and vehicles were all that was left of the refugee camp in Rafah known as the Kuwaiti Al-Salam Camp 1. An aid group, Al-Salam Association for Humanitarian and Charitable Works, reported that besides the dozens of deaths and injuries, over 120 tents and several facilities were destroyed.

Bilal al-Sapti, a 30-year-old construction worker from Rafah, recounted the devastation he witnessed. “The fire was very strong and was all over the camp,” he said. “There was darkness and no electricity.” Despite the destruction, his family miraculously survived.

“Many of the dead bodies were severely burned, had amputated limbs and were torn to pieces,” said Dr Marwan al-Hams, a healthcare worker.

The UN reported that one million civilians had fled Rafah since the start of Israel’s assault in early May, despite numerous international warnings against the escalating violence.

The conflict, the deadliest in Gaza’s history, began with a deadly attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, resulting in 1,189 Israeli deaths and 252 hostages taken. Israel’s response has been relentless, with the Gaza Health Ministry reporting over 36,096 deaths, mostly civilians.