War resumes in Gaza after truce collapses
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[December 01, 2023]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Suhaib Salem
GAZA (Reuters) -Israel's warplanes pounded Gaza, sending wounded and
dead Palestinians into hospitals and residents into the streets to flee,
as its war against Hamas resumed after talks to extend a week-old truce
broke down.
As the deadline lapsed, Reuters journalists in Khan Younis in southern
Gaza saw eastern areas come under intensive bombardment, sending columns
of smoke rising into the sky. Residents took to the road with belongings
heaped up in carts, fleeing for shelter further west.
In the north of the enclave, previously the main war zone, huge plumes
of smoke rose above the ruins, seen from across the fence in Israel. The
rattle of gunfire and thud of explosions rang out above the sound of
barking dogs.
Rocket sirens also blared across southern Israel as militants fired from
the coastal enclave into towns.
Within hours of the truce expiring, Gaza health officials reported that
54 people had already been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes that
hit at least eight homes.
Medics and witnesses said the bombing was most intensive in Khan Younis
and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of
Gazans have been sheltering from fighting further north. Houses in
central and northern areas were also hit.
"Anas, my son!" wailed the mother of Anas Anwar al-Masri, a boy lying on
a stretcher with a head injury in the corridor of Nasser hospital in
Khan Younis. "I don't have anyone but you!"
Further south in Rafah, residents carried several small children,
streaked with blood and covered in dust, out of a house that had been
struck. Mohammed Abu-Elneen, whose father owns the house, said it was
sheltering people displaced from elsewhere.
At the nearby Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital, the first wave of wounded
were men and boys.
Gazans said they feared that the bombing of southern parts of the
enclave could herald an expansion of the war into areas Israel had
previously described as safe.
Leaflets dropped on eastern areas of the main southern city Khan Younis
ordered residents of four towns to evacuate - not to other areas in Khan
Younis as in the past, but further south to the crowded town of Rafah on
the Egyptian border.
"You have to evacuate immediately and go to the shelters in the Rafah
area. Khan Younis is a dangerous fighting zone. You have been warned,"
said the leaflets, written in Arabic.
Israel released a link to a map showing Gaza divided into hundreds of
districts, which it said would be used in future to communicate which
areas were safe.
SIDES BLAME EACH OTHER FOR COLLAPSE
Each side said the other had rejected terms to extend the truce, which
had involved freeing hostages seized by Hamas and other militants in the
deadly Oct. 7 raid into Israel that precipitated the war, and the
release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
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An Israeli military helicopter releases a flare over the Israel-Gaza
border, after a temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian
Islamist group Hamas expired, as seen from southern Israel, December
1, 2023. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
"With the resumption of fighting we emphasize: The Israeli
government is committed to achieving the goals of the war - to free
our hostages, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never
pose a threat to the residents of Israel," the office of Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
A Palestinian official familiar with the Israel-Hamas third-party
talks said they collapsed overnight over Israel's demand that Hamas
free female soldiers, whom he said were completely separate from the
hostages. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
The pause which began on Nov. 24 and was extended twice, had allowed
for daily exchanges of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian
detainees, while trucks brought in aid.
Israel, which rejects calls for a permanent ceasefire, had said the
temporary truce could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages
each day. But after seven days during which women, children and
foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed at the final hour to
find a formula to release more.
Qatar, which has played a central role in mediation efforts, said
negotiations were still ongoing with Israelis and Palestinians to
restore the truce, but that Israel's renewed bombardment of Gaza had
complicated its efforts.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas in response to the Oct. 7
rampage by the militant group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1,200
people and took 240 hostages. Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction,
has ruled Gaza since 2007.
Israel's bombardment and ground invasion have laid waste to much of
the territory. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the
United Nations say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed
killed and thousands more are missing and feared buried under
rubble.
The United Nations says as many as 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million have
been driven from their homes, with no way to escape the narrow
territory, many sleeping rough in makeshift shelters.
Israel has imposed a total siege, and residents and humanitarian
agencies say aid that arrived during the truce was trivial compared
to the vast needs of so many displaced people.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had met Israeli and
Palestinian officials on Thursday on his third trip to the region
since the war began, declined to comment on the collapse of the
truce to reporters travelling on his plane.
The day before, Blinken had called on Israel to do more to protect
civilians once fighting resumes. He had praised the truce and said
Washington hoped it would be extended.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Mohammed Salem and Roleen
Tafakji in Gaza, Humeyra Pamuk in Tel Aviv, Ari Rabinovich and Emily
Rose in Jerusalem, Andrew Mills in Doha and Reuters bureaux; Writing
by Cynthia Osterman, Lincoln Feast, Peter Graff; Editing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher)
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