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Israel focuses assault on southern Gaza amid concern over spread of war

[January 04, 2024] By Mohammad Azakir, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Arafat Barbakh

BEIRUT/CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -Israeli shelling killed 14 Palestinians on Thursday 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 said.

The dead included nine children, an official told Reuters.

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

Gaza residents also said Israeli planes and tanks bombarded three refugee camps in the centre of the shattered enclave in heavier attacks than in previous days.

The latest action took place as Israel's war against Hamas neared the three-month mark amid international concern that the conflict was 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 on Wednesday 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 spokesperson 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."

Hezbollah has been embroiled in nearly daily exchanges of shelling with Israel across Lebanon's southern border since the Gaza war began. But U.S. 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 Oct. 7 cross-border assault in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 abducted.

Israel unleashed a ground and air blitz of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack, and the total recorded Palestinian death toll had reached 22,313 by Wednesday - almost 1% of its 2.3 million population, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Adding to the patchwork of violence across the region, two explosions on Wednesday killed nearly 100 people during a memorial ceremony for the late Iranian General Qasem Soleimani at the cemetery in southeastern Iran where he is buried. No group has claimed responsibility.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel, to continue "diplomatic consultations" on the Israel-Gaza conflict, a U.S. official said.

GAZA BLOODSHED

In Thursday morning'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.

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Israeli army tanks manoeuvre near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Israel, January 3, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

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

A warplane also struck a launch post from which militants had fired an anti-tank missile at Israeli troops, it said. They also hit various weapons storage sites.

MUD ADDS TO MISERY

Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated enclave and created a humanitarian disaster which aid agencies say is catastrophic. Most Gazans have been left homeless, with food shortages threatening famine.

On Thursday, people were pouring out of Al-Bureij, Al-Maghazi and Al-Nusseirat refugee camps, with some families riding on donkey carts loaded with mattresses, luggage and children, and others in cars.

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.

"Israel is showing its muscles on civilians, women and children. They are cowards," said Salama Ahmed, 49, a north Gaza resident and father of five heading to Rafah in the south.

"They bombed the entire central Gaza heavier than in many days, they are planning massacres and destructions as they did in Gaza City and the north. Is this their war? Are they fighting Hamas? They are fighting the unarmed civilians," he told Reuters

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 4 p.m.

While Israel has pledged to eradicate Hamas, its longer term plans for the enclave are unclear. Foreign governments and organisations have said any solution must address Palestinian aspirations for an independent state, but that prospect seems distant amid the unrelenting bloodshed in what Israel says will be a long war.

(Reporting by Mohammad Azakir in Beirut, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Arafat Barbakh in Gaza, Maayan Lubell at the Israel-Gaza border, Dan Williams and Emily Rose in Jerusalem and Trevor Hunnicutt and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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