Israeli forces attacked several areas in Gaza on Wednesday (26), and residents reported fierce fighting overnight in Rafah, in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
Residents said fighting intensified in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood west of Rafah, where tanks were also trying to force their way north amid heavy clashes. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said the fighters attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortars.
Since early May, ground fighting has centered on Rafah, near Egypt at the southern tip of Gaza, where about half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have taken shelter after fleeing other areas. Since then, most have had to flee again.
Doctors said two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli missile attack in Rafah on Wednesday morning.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces killed a Hamas militant who was involved in arms smuggling across the border between Rafah and Egypt.
He said the jets struck dozens of militant targets in Rafah overnight, including fighters, military structures and tunnel shafts.
In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a house, killing four Palestinians and wounding several others, medics said.
Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli records.
The retaliatory Israeli offensive has killed 37,658 people, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday, and left the small, densely populated Gaza Strip in ruins.
More than eight months into the war, US-backed international mediation has failed to produce a ceasefire agreement. Hamas claims that any agreement must bring an end to the war and Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas is eradicated.
Severe food shortages
In the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians complained of severe food shortages and rising prices, and health authorities said thousands of children were suffering from malnutrition, which has killed at least 30 since October 7.
“There is only flour and canned food, there is nothing else to eat, no vegetables, no meat, no milk. I lost more than 25 kilos of my weight,” said Abu Mustafa, who lives in Gaza City with his family. .
Their home was hit last week by an Israeli tank, which destroyed most of the upper floor, forcing them to remain on the lower floor. “In any case, there are no safe places in Gaza,” he said.
“In addition to the bombing, there is another Israeli war going on in northern Gaza, the famine. People meet on the streets and many cannot recognize each other because of their weight loss and aged appearance,” Abu Mustafa told Reuters via a chat app.
Gaza remains at high risk of famine, although the delivery of some aid has limited the projected spread of extreme famine in northern areas, a global monitor said on Tuesday.
More than 495,000 people across the Gaza Strip face the most severe, or “catastrophic,” level of food insecurity, according to an update to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership used by the United Nations and aid agencies.
This number is lower than the 1.1 million forecast in the previous update three months ago, but still represents more than a fifth of Gaza’s population.
Source: CNN Brasil
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