United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has renewed his call for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in the besieged territory since the start attacks in October, officials said.
In a video address to international donors gathered in Kuwait on Sunday, Guterres also called for “the unconditional release of all prisoners held by Hamas as well as an immediate increase in humanitarian aid” to Gaza.
“A ceasefire will only be the beginning,” he said in the video, warning that “it will be a long road to recover from the devastation and trauma of this war.”
As Guterres reiterated his call, Israeli forces struck several points in Gaza, once again displacing hundreds of thousands of refugees already fleeing the war. Israeli tanks entered Jabalia, while multiple strikes killed dozens in Beit Lahiya to the north and Rafah to the south.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that at least 12 bodies arrived at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya following what it described as Israeli “carpet bombing.”
Emad Oudeh, a resident of Beit Lahiya, told Tel Aviv Tribune they did not know where to go as Israeli attacks intensified. “We are shocked. We don’t know what to do. We are physically and mentally exhausted. We’re about to go crazy. »
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Israeli tanks began “going deeper” into the Jabalia refugee camp.
Jabalia is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and is home to more than 100,000 people, mostly descendants of Palestinians driven from towns and villages in what is now Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that led to the creation of the camp. State of Israel.
“We heard from eyewitnesses on the ground, in this very densely populated area, that military tanks were surrounding evacuation centers and residential buildings,” Abou Azzoum said.
Those fleeing Israeli bombardments also face a severe shortage of food and medical supplies in the areas where they have sought refuge.
Mahmoud Basal, of the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, said there were no longer any medical services or humanitarian aid provided to displaced people in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
“We have lost 80 percent of our capabilities and no one is responding to our appeals to international institutions,” the civil defense spokesperson said in a statement.
Imad Abu Zayda, an emergency doctor in Jabalia, told Tel Aviv Tribune that most of the injured arriving at his hospital were women and children, describing the situation as dire.
“We operate with minimal facilities. No light due to lack of fuel and there is no medical supplement available as Israel has expanded its operations in the region. We don’t have oxygen to give to patients,” he said.
“No safe place in Gaza”
In central Gaza, the civil defense department reported at least two deaths, a father and his son, both doctors, during an Israeli strike in Deir el-Balah on Sunday.
Further south, in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town on the border with Egypt, the Kuwaiti hospital said it had received the bodies of 18 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave a similar estimate that “around 300,000 people” have fled Rafah over the past week, denouncing in a post on X the “forced displacement and inhumane treatment of Palestinians” who have “nowhere to go safely”. » in Gaza.
Palestinians in Rafah, many displaced by fighting elsewhere in the territory, piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings on vehicles and prepared to flee again.
“The artillery shelling did not stop at all” for several days, said Mohammed Hamad, 24, who left eastern Rafah for the west of the city. “There is no safe place in Gaza where we can take refuge. »
Residents were urged to go to the “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah, although aid groups warned it was not ready to accommodate an influx of people. people.
European Union chief Charles Michel, however, said on social media that civilians in Rafah had been sent to “dangerous areas”, denouncing this as “unacceptable”.