Israeli troops pounded besieged Gaza on Wednesday and engaged Hamas around several hospitals, despite a ceasefire request from the UN Security Council.
Talks in Qatar regarding a ceasefire and hostage release agreement involving mediators from the United States (US) and Egypt have so far produced no results, with Israel and Palestinian militant groups blaming each other.
Tensions are rising between Israel and its main ally the US, due to severe food shortages in Gaza and a soaring number of civilian casualties in the war sparked by a Hamas attack on October 7.
The US also opposes Israel’s plans to launch a ground attack on the southern city of Rafah, home to 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the war.
In heavy nighttime bombardment, Israeli strikes once more hit Gaza City and Rafah, where fireballs lit up the sky.
Israeli forces have been fighting militants around three hospitals in Gaza, causing fear among patients, medical staff and refugees inside the hospitals.
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Fighting has flared since last week around Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the region, and more recently near two hospitals in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, Al-Amal and Nasser.
The army and the Shin Bet security service said they “continue to carry out appropriate operational activities” in the two cities “while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment”.
The military said dozens of militants had been killed “in the area” of Al-Shifa and “hundreds of terrorists had been arrested”.
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Israeli tanks and armored vehicles also gathered around Nasser Hospital, Gaza’s health ministry said, adding shots had been fired but no attacks had been carried out.
A military spokesman told AFP: “We are operating in the area, but we are not inside the hospital yet.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands of people were trapped inside and their “lives were in danger”.
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Air deliveries continue to be made
Gaza has endured nearly six months of war and siege that has cut off much of its food, water, fuel and other supplies, and the UN has warned that its 2.4 million residents are on the verge of “man-made famine”.
The flow of aid trucks from Egypt has slowed since the start of the war as Israeli officials carry out lengthy inspections.
Donor governments have sent food to Gaza, where desperate crowds have rushed to parachute aid packages. At least 18 people were reported dead this week, following being trampled or drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.
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Hamas has called for an end to air deliveries of aid. It called instead for increased deliveries by road.
AFP images on Wednesday showed a military plane dropping aid packages into Gaza once more, and the Jordanian military announcing “five airstrikes” in the north with Egyptian, United Arab Emirates, German and Spanish aircraft.
The war broke out when Hamas launched an unprecedented offensive on October 7 that resulted in around 1,160 deaths in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
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The militants also took around 250 people hostage. Israel said that, following a ceasefire and an earlier hostage deal, around 130 prisoners remained in Gaza, including 34 people thought to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,490 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.
Israel also accused Palestinian militants of sexually abusing victims and hostages on October 7.
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The New York Times published a report on the first Israeli woman to speak publicly regarding sexual harassment, 40-year-old lawyer Amit Soussana.
Soussana, who was kidnapped from her home near the Gaza border and freed in November, said she was repeatedly beaten and sexually assaulted at gunpoint by her guards inside Gaza.
The non-governmental Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel said on social media platform X that Soussana’s “heart-wrenching testimony forced the world to act”.
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“The Israeli government and world governments must do whatever it takes to bring home” the remaining hostages, he said.
‘No progress’ in negotiations
The UN Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of prisoners.
The United States, which had blocked previous resolutions, abstained, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a scheduled visit by his officials to the US to discuss the situation in Rafah.
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But a US official later said Israel wanted to reschedule the talks.
Israeli and Hamas envoys have been holding indirect talks for weeks aimed at halting the fighting, but both sides said this week that diplomacy had failed.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said the talks were “ongoing” at a technical level.
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Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad accused Israel of being “stubborn and wanting the war to continue”.
“There has been no progress in ceasefire negotiations or prisoner exchange negotiations,” he said.
Amid the bloodiest conflict in Gaza, violence has also escalated in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli strike on Wednesday on the northern city of Jenin killed three people.
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Israel also exchanges cross-border fire every day with Hamas’ ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
The hostilities, in which Israel also targets Hamas militants, have raised fears of a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war in 2006.
Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday and killed a civilian, following Israel launched a deadly pre-dawn attack in southern Lebanon. (AFP/Z-3)
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