Displaced Gazans flee again as Israel launches fresh tank, air assaults
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[December 29, 2023]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Arafat Barbakh
CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of newly displaced Gazans
huddled under tarpaulins on Friday in the centre of the enclave after
fleeing the latest offensive by Israeli tanks, while warplanes targeted
the south, flattening homes and burying families as they slept.
Israel is closing the year with new assaults in central and southern
Gaza, unleashing a fresh exodus of people already driven from other
areas, in what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called an essential stage
of its mission to destroy Hamas.
In the south of the strip in Rafah, Reuters journalists at the scene of
one air strike that obliterated a building saw the head of a buried
toddler sticking out of the rubble. The child screamed as a rescue
worker shielded his head with a hand, while another swung a sledgehammer
at a chisel, trying to break up a slab of concrete to free him.
Neighbour Sanad Abu Tabet said the two-story house had been crowded with
displaced people. After morning broke, relatives came to collect the
dead wrapped up in white shrouds. A man partly unwrapped one, to stroke
the face of a dead child.
Tens of thousands of Gazans have been fleeing the crowded central
districts of Bureij, Maghazi and Nusseirat, ordered out by Israeli
forces whose tanks advanced from the north and east. Most have made
their way south or west to the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah,
pitching makeshift tents made from sheets of plastic on whatever open
ground they could find.
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"We suffered a lot. We had the whole night without shelter, under rain
and it was cold, we were with our kids and elderly women," said Um Hamdi,
cooking porridge in a pot over an open woodfire, surrounded by children.
Nearby, grey bearded Abdel Nasser Awadallah stood inside a wooden frame
that would be wrapped in plastic to make a tent, and spoke of the family
he had lost.
"I buried my children, a child 16 year old, another one aged 18.
Something I really can't believe, I buried my children at 6:00 am while
their bodies were still warm. Also my nephew he was 2 years old, I
buried him, I buried my wife," he said.
"I never thought in my life that I will bury my children, I thought they
would bury me."
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NO SIGN OF SCALING DOWN ISRAELI ASSAULT
Twelve weeks after Hamas militants stormed Israeli towns, killing 1,200
people and seizing 240 hostages, Israeli forces have laid much of the
Gaza Strip to waste. Nearly all its 2.3 million people have been driven
from their homes at least once, and many are now fleeing for the third
or fourth time.
Gaza health authorities say more than 21,000 people are confirmed killed
- about 1 percent of the enclave's population - with thousands more
bodies feared unrecovered in the ruins. The United Nations says many
thousands more may die from severe shortages of food, medicine, clean
water and adequate shelter.
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![](../images/122923PIX/news_l31.jpg)
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid
the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the
southern Gaza Strip December 29, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
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Israel says it is doing what it can to protect civilians and blames
Hamas fighters for harm to them, for operating among them, which
Hamas denies.
Israel's closest ally the United States has publicly called this
month for it to scale down the full-blown war in coming weeks and
transition to targeted operations against Hamas leaders.
But so far Israel shows no sign of doing so, launching a new assault
in the final week of the year that began with intense bombing of
central areas. Israel issued a rare apology on Thursday for killing
civilians in a huge air strike on Christmas Eve that Palestinian
authorities say killed scores of people and triggered one of the
biggest mass exoduses of the war so far.
Residents say Israeli forces have fought their way deep into Bureij
in the battle in central Gaza in the past two days, with intense
fighting still taking place on the eastern outskirts. Bombing has
been particularly intense there, and in adjacent Nusseirat and
Maghazi.
Footage filmed by a Palestinian Red Crescent volunteer in Maghazi
showed dead and wounded being carried from ruined buildings there.
Palestinian media reported strikes in Nusseirat had killed at least
35 people overnight.
In the south, Israeli forces have also been pounding Khan Younis, in
preparation for an anticipated further advance into the main
southern city, swathes of which they captured in early December.
Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, described the advance there
as "a task that has never been done before" and said troops were
reaching Hamas command centers and arms depots.
"Our operations are essential to achieving the goals of the war. We
see the results and the destruction of enemy forces."
Israel says it will fight on until it annihilates Hamas, which is
sworn to Israel's destruction. Palestinians say such an aim is
unachievable because of the militant group's diffuse structure and
deep roots in a territory it has ruled since 2007.
Israel's Western allies, led by Washington, have defended its right
to defend itself by retaliating against Hamas, but have grown
increasingly alarmed by the high death toll and humanitarian
devastation.
Efforts by mediators Egypt and Qatar to negotiate a ceasefire have
so far been fruitless since a week-long truce collapsed at the end
of November. Egypt, which hosted the leaders of Hamas and smaller
militant group Islamic Jihad in the past week, said on Thursday it
was awaiting responses from both sides to a proposed peace plan.
(Reporting by Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Arafat
Barbakh in GazaWriting by Peter Graff, Editing by William Maclean)
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