GAZA/CAIRO: Israeli forces signalled they were widening their ground offensive with a new push into central Gaza on Friday (Dec 22), as the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to increase humanitarian aid to stave off the threat of famine.
As hopes faded for an imminent breakthrough in talks this week in Egypt aimed at getting warring Israel and Hamas to agree to a new truce, air strikes, artillery bombardments and fighting were reported across the Palestinian enclave.
Israel’s military on Friday ordered residents of Al-Bureij, in central Gaza, to move south immediately, indicating a new focus of the ground assault that has already devastated the north of the Strip and made a series of incursions in the south.
Some residents packed up donkey carts and left, but there was no immediate sign of large numbers from Al-Bureij joining the hundreds of thousands fleeing other areas.
“Where should we go to? There is no place safe,” Ziad, a medic and father of six, told Reuters by phone. “They ask people to head to (the central Gaza city of) Deir Al-Balah, where they bomb day and night.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has vowed to eradicate Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza, after the group’s fighters launched a cross-border raid into southern Israel on Oct 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
But the soaring death toll during the Israeli military campaign of retaliation has drawn increasing international criticism, even from staunch ally the United States.
Source: CNA
