Israel orders residents to leave southern Gaza towns

With most of northern Gaza under Israeli military control, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are setting their sights on Hamas’s second-biggest stronghold, the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza close to Khan Yunis, signalling the likely expansion of operations to areas where hundreds of thousands of people fled from northern Gaza, seeking shelter.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has said the ground operation will eventually include both north and south Gaza. “We will strike Hamas wherever it is,” he said. “The deeper we go, the more pressure is put on Hamas. That will increase the chances of returning our hostages.”

In the northern Gaza Strip the streets are almost entirely deserted after the bulk of residents fled south. The large contingent of Israeli forces, armour and infantry, is meeting only sporadic resistance, occasional sniper fire or militants emerging from tunnel shafts, trying to catch the soldiers by surprise. The IDF says it believes most of the Hamas fighters have either fled south via the tunnels or have relocated to the few Gaza city neighbourhoods, such as Sejaiya or Tufah, which the army has still not attacked.

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On Thursday, day 41 of the war, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said 11,500 people had been killed since the start of the fighting.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged Israel not to be consumed by rage in its response to the Hamas attack on October 7th in which 1,200 people were killed, saying that “one horror does not justify another”. Speaking during a visit to Israel, Mr Borrell stressed the EU’s solidarity with Israel and its support for the country’s right to defend itself in line with international law.

UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk said an outbreak of infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip appeared inevitable. He told reporters that any suspicion of a violation of international law from either side must be examined.

Palestinian medics said they were increasingly afraid for the lives of hundreds of patients and medical staff at Gaza’s biggest hospital, cut off from all links to the outside world for more than a day after Israeli forces entered.

Israel said its commandos were still searching through al-Shifa hospital on Thursday, more than a day after they entered its grounds as part of an offensive which Israel says aims to wipe out Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel believes a vast underground Hamas command headquarters was operating in tunnels beneath the hospital and on Thursday night the military claimed troops had found a tunnel shaft and vehicle with weapons inside the hospital complex.

The military released videos and photographs which it claimed showed the tunnel shaft and weapons.

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It also said it had discovered the body of a 65-year-old woman hostage, Judith Weiss, close to al-Shifa hospital. The military said Ms Weiss, from Kibbutz Be’eri, was found on Tuesday after soldiers searched a building next to the hospital.

Ms Weiss was being treated for breast cancer before she was kidnapped. Her husband was also killed in the Hamas attack on October 7th.

Military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were also found in the building, the IDF said.

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Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, said there was no water, food or baby milk in al-Shifa, which he said was packed with 650 patients and about 7,000 people displaced by weeks of Israeli air strikes and artillery bombardments.

Medics have previously said dozens of patients including three premature babies had died from a lack of fuel and basic supplies during a days-long siege.

Three Hamas gunmen from the Hebron area were shot and killed on Thursday at a roadblock to southern Jerusalem. An Israeli soldier was killed and five other people wounded in the exchange of fire. The gunmen were carrying two M16 rifles, pistols and axes and Israeli police believed they planned to carry out a major attack in Jerusalem. – Additional reporting: Reuters