Israeli military fight from house to house in S Gaza

FE Team | Published: December 09, 2023 21:01:14

GAZA, Dec 09 (BBC/Reuters): The southern Gaza city is surrounded by Israeli tanks on two sides. The Israeli military says it is fighting with Hamas fighters from house to house.
A hospital boss in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, says his team has "lost control" over the numbers of dead and wounded arriving at the facility.
The Jabalia refugee camp in the north has also been encircled - leaving thousands trapped inside for days without food and water, according to one displaced Palestinian.
The death of an Israeli hostage - Sahar Baruch, 25 - has been confirmed by his kibbutz and a hostage group, following reports of a failed Israeli rescue operation.
On Friday, the US blocked a resolution at the UN Security Council calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, arguing this would be dangerous and unrealistic.
US vetoes UN Security Council
ceasefire demand
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, even as it kept up pressure on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians during a fierce offensive against Hamas militants across the enclave.
Fighting escalated and the Palestinian death toll rose on Saturday, with Israel pounding the enclave from north to south in an expanded phase of the two-month-old war against the Iran-backed Islamist group Hamas.
Decrying a "spiralling humanitarian nightmare", UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday declared that nowhere in Gaza was safe for civilians, hours before the US vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by the vast majority of its members calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The vote left Washington diplomatically isolated on the 15-member council. Thirteen members voted in favour of the draft resolution put forward by the United Arab Emirates, while Britain abstained.
Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the council: "We do not support this resolution's call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war."
The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire, saying it would benefit Hamas, which Israel has vowed to annihilate in response to the militants' deadly Oct 7 cross-border rampage.
Washington instead supports "pauses" like the seven-day halt in fighting that saw Hamas release some hostages and the humanitarian aid flow increase. The deal broke down on Dec 1.
Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour told the council the vote means that "millions of Palestinian lives hang in the balance."
Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of Hamas' political bureau, condemned the US veto as "inhumane." Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said in a statement: "A ceasefire will be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas."
"We certainly all recognize more can be done to try to reduce civilian casualties," White House national security council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Gaza 'safe zone' for 2.0m civilians
smaller than Heathrow Airport
As Israel presses its military offensive across Gaza, the army has been repeatedly advising some two million civilians to move to a "humanitarian zone" smaller than London's Heathrow Airport.
Al-Mawasi is a narrow strip of land by the Mediterranean Sea. It has few buildings and largely consists of sandy dunes and agricultural land. The zone designated as safe by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is just 8.5 sq km (3.3 sq miles).
Reem Abd Rabu has spent the last few weeks sleeping on the ground and sharing a tent with four other families in the area. She is one of the 1.8 million Palestinians who have been displaced since the war began on 7 October after Hamas's attack on Israel.
She first travelled to Khan Younis after fleeing northern Gaza, but after nearby houses were bombed, she said she felt she had to go to the place the Israeli army identified on the map as safe.
Reem told the BBC al-Mawasi was an abandoned place, "not a place for human beings". She thought it would be safe from the intense bombardment and fighting, but when she arrived, she found little to no basic services.