CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israeli forces signalled they were widening their ground offensive with a new push into central Gaza on Friday, as the U.N. Security Council was expected to vote on 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.
Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to eradicate Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza, after its fighters launched a cross-border raid 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.
In its latest update on casualties, Gaza’s health ministry said 20,057 Palestinians had been killed and 53,320 wounded in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7.
“After more than two months of the war, Israel’s indiscriminate strikes on Gaza have turned the north of the Strip into a pile of rubble,” medical charity MSF said in a post on X. “In Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, south Gaza, the dead and wounded continue to arrive almost every day… Nowhere is safe.”
The Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths but blamed Iran-backed Hamas for operating in densely populated areas or using civilians as human shields, an allegation the group denies.
Israel says 140 of its soldiers have been killed since it launched its ground incursion into Gaza on Oct. 20.
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