Israel focuses assault on southern Gaza Strip

Israeli shelling has killed 14 Palestinians in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area of the Gaza Strip packed with people who had fled attacks in other parts of the enclave, Gaza health ministry officials say.

The dead included nine children, an official told Reuters.

There was no comment from the Israeli military on the attack although it had reported fighting and air strikes against Hamas militants in the Khan Younis area on Thursday.

Gaza residents also said Israeli planes and tanks bombarded three refugee camps in the centre of the shattered enclave, prompting many civilians to head south.

Israel’s war against Hamas is nearing the three-month mark amid international concern that the conflict is spreading beyond Gaza, drawing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hezbollah forces on the Lebanon-Israel border and Red Sea shipping lanes.

Fears were heightened after a drone strike on Tuesday killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed that his powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite militia “cannot be silent” following the killing.

Nasrallah said his forces would fight to the finish if Israel chose to extend the war to Lebanon but he made no concrete threats to act against Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari declined to comment when asked what Israel was doing to prepare for a potential Hezbollah response, saying only: “We are focused on the fight against Hamas.”

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, meeting US envoy Amos Hochstein, said there must be a “new reality” in the Lebanon-Israel border region which would allow Israelis who have left northern areas to return.

“We will not tolerate the threats posed by the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, and we will ensure the security of our citizens,” he was quoted in a ministry statement as saying.

Hezbollah has been embroiled in nearly daily exchanges of shelling with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since the Gaza war began.

But US officials said on Wednesday they saw little sign that Hezbollah was about to escalate actions against Israel.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied assassinating Arouri but has promised to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza, following its October 7 cross-border assault in which Israel says 1200 people were killed and 240 abducted.

Israel unleashed a ground and air blitz of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack.

The total recorded Palestinian death toll had reached 22,438 by Thursday – almost 1 per cent of its 2.3 million population, the Gaza health ministry said.

It added 125 of these were killed in the past 24 hours.

In Thursday’s reported strike in al-Mawasi on the western side of Khan Younis, health ministry officials said nine children were among the 14 dead.

Israeli shells had landed near tents erected in the area by displaced people, they said.

Footage circulated in Palestinian media showed several bodies wrapped in blankets inside a hospital morgue in Khan Younis.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its headquarters in Khan Younis was hit, killing one person and wounding others.

The Israeli military reported several clashes in Khan Younis, where it has said previously that it is trying to flush out Hamas leaders hiding there.

In its daily briefing, it said Israeli warplanes killed three Hamas militants who had tried to detonate explosive next to ground troops, and Israeli soldiers killed two more.

Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated enclave and created a humanitarian disaster.

Most Gazans have been left homeless, with food shortages threatening famine.

People poured out of al-Bureij, al-Maghazi and al-Nusseirat refugee camps on Thursday following attacks, with some families riding on donkey carts loaded with mattresses, luggage and children.

Rain has turned earth to mud, adding to the misery of people whose next home was likely to be a tent on a patch of waste ground.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said it was closing one humanitarian corridor along which people could flee and opening another.

Only movement from north to south would be allowed, he said.

It will be open for five hours until 4pm.

– Australian Associated Press