Israel-Hamas War

Israel-Hamas fight heats up in Gaza City, accelerating exodus of Palestinians to the south

Over 70% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have already left their homes since the war began

NBC Universal, Inc. The United Nations World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain issued an urgent plea from the Rafah border crossing for safe and expanded humanitarian access to Gaza.

Palestinians living in the heart of Gaza’s largest city said Wednesday they could see and hear Israeli ground forces closing in from multiple directions, accelerating the exodus of thousands of civilians as food and water become scarce and urban fighting between Israel and Hamas heats up.

The Israeli army has not given specifics on troop movements as it presses its ground assault, vowing to crush Hamas after its deadly Oct. 7 assault inside Israel. But residents said Israeli forces had moved into inner neighborhoods of Gaza City amid intense bombardment all around the surrounding north.

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Clashes took place within a kilometer (0.6 miles) of the territory's largest hospital, Shifa, which has become a focal point in the war.

The Israeli military says Hamas’ main command center is located in and under the hospital complex and that senior leaders of the group are hiding there, accusing the militants of using the facility as a shield.

Hamas and hospital staff deny the claim and say the military is making a pretext to strike it.

For Palestinians in Gaza, the hospital is a symbol for civilian suffering in the war. Like others, it has been overwhelmed by a constant stream of wounded and struggling as electricity and medical supplies run out. Tens of thousands of displaced people have been sheltering in and around the complex.

The Group of Seven wealthy industrial nations issued a statement Wednesday condemning Hamas and supporting Israel’s right to self-defense. But the group also called for the “unimpeded” delivery of food, water, medicine and fuel, and for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has left open the possibility of small pauses to deliver aid, but has ruled out a broader cease-fire unless nearly 240 hostages taken by Hamas are freed.

“There are no limitations” on how long the war will last, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s decision-making War Cabinet, said Wednesday.

Gantz acknowledged that Israel does not yet have a vision for the Gaza Strip after it destroys Hamas rule, but it will include an Israeli security presence in the territory after the war — a point that echoed comments made by Netanyahu earlier this week.

The prime minister's comments appear to have heightened U.S. concerns. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called for a united and Palestinian-led government for Gaza and the West Bank after the war ends, as a move toward Palestinian statehood.

The U.S. and Israel agree that the Hamas militant group cannot return to its rule of the Gaza Strip. But none of the ideas that Israeli officials have raised for Gaza’s governance after the war have included independent Palestinian rule as a credible possibility.

Support for the war remains strong inside Israel, where the focus has been on the fate of the more than 240 hostages taken by Hamas and other militant groups.

Over 70% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have already left their homes since the war began but the number fleeing the north has dramatically accelerated.

Throngs of people filled Salah al-Din Street, Gaza’s main highway leading south. They appeared to be in greater numbers than Tuesday, when the U.N. said about 15,000 people streamed southward -- which in turn was triple the number the day before.

Families walked together, with men and women carrying young children or pushing the elderly on makeshift carts. Most had only a few belongings in backpacks. A few families rode on donkey carts, holding white flags as they approached Israeli tanks. Israel extended the daily window for them to use the road to five hours.

Israeli forces advancing from the northwest along the Mediterranean coast have been clashing with fighters inside Shati refugee camp, a dense neighborhood adjacent to Gaza City’s center, two residents told The Associated Press. The past nights have seen heavy bombardment of Shati, which houses Palestinian families who fled from or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its establishment.

Other troops coming through Gaza City’s Zeitoun district had reached even closer. One resident living near Shifa Hospital said he saw Israeli troops battling fighters on a street about 600 meters (yards) from the hospital.

“I’m hearing all kinds of horrible sounds. It is terrifying. There are intense airstrikes,” he said. Both residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The Israeli army’s chief spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Wednesday the ground forces were deepening the offensive into Gaza City. The army said it killed one of Hamas’ leading developers of rockets and other weapons, without saying where he was killed.

Israel is focusing its operations on the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war and where the military says Hamas has its central command and a labyrinth of tunnels.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have heeded Israeli orders in recent weeks to flee to the south to get out of the way of the ground assault.

For tens of thousands believed to remain, desperation was increasing.

“We didn’t have food or drinking water. ... They struck the bakeries. There is no life in Gaza,” said Abeer Akila, a woman fleeing south with her family.

The trickle of aid entering Gaza from the south is largely barred from going north, which has been without running water for weeks. The U.N. aid office said the last functioning bakeries shut down Tuesday for lack of fuel, water and flour. Hospitals running low on supplies are performing surgeries without anesthesia.

Al-Quds Hospital has become completely cut off after all roads around it were bombed and has had to shut down most of its operations to ration fuel use. A convoy trying to bring medical supplies came under fire by Israeli forces and couldn’t reach it, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. More than 14,000 displaced people are sheltering at the hospital, and bread supplies have run out, it said.

Majed Haroun, a teacher who remains in Gaza City, said women and children who lost families go door to door begging for food.

“No words can describe what we are experiencing,” he said.CONDITIONS LITTLE BETTER IN THE SOUTH

The new arrivals from the north are squeezing into homes with extended family or in U.N. schools-turned-shelters where hundreds of thousands are taking refuge. At one, 600 people must share a single toilet, according to the U.N. office.

Israeli strikes have continued in the southern zone. One on Wednesday hit a family house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens of others, according to Iyad Abu Zaher, director of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the dead and wounded were brought. He said the toll could rise as medics and first responders searched the rubble.

Hundreds of trucks carrying aid have been allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt since Oct. 21.

But “there is an ocean of needs in Gaza right now, and what’s been getting in is a drop in the ocean. We need fuel, we need water, we need food, and we need medical supplies,” Dominic Allen of the United Nations Population Fund said, speaking from the West Bank.

A month of relentless bombardment in Gaza since the Hamas attack has killed more than 10,500 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. More than 2,300 others are believed to have been buried by strikes that in some cases have demolished entire city blocks.

More than 1,400 people have died in Israel since the start of the war, most of them civilians killed by Hamas militants during their incursion. Israel says 32 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, and Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel on a daily basis.

Israeli officials say thousands of Palestinian militants have been killed, and blame civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing it of operating in residential areas. Gaza’s Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its casualty reports.

The war has stoked wider tensions, with Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group trading fire along the border. More than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the war began, mainly during violent protests and gunbattles with Israeli forces during arrest raids. Some 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities along the borders with Gaza and Lebanon.

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Associated Press writers Najib Jobain in Khan Younis, Samy Magdy reported from Cairo and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem contributed to this report. Jeffery and Keath reported from Cairo.

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Palestinians stand next to a crater caused by an explosion from an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza Strip, on Oct. 16, 2023.
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A man reacts as he watches rescuers and civilians remove the rubble of a home destroyed following an Israeli attack on the town of Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Oct. 15, 2023.
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Israeli troops prepare weapons and armed vehicles near the southern city of Ashkelon on Oct. 15, 2023.
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Members of the Bedouin community inspect vehicles destroyed in a rocket attack allegedly fired from the Gaza Strip in the village of Arara in the Negev Desert, on Oct. 14, 2023.
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A Palestinian man uses a fire extinguisher to douse a fire following an Israeli strike, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 14, 2023.
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Palestinians with their belongings leave Gaza City as they flee from their homes following the Israeli army’s warning on Oct. 13, 2023.
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A Palestinian child watches as smoke billows on the horizon after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on Oct. 13, 2023.
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Israeli army tanks and vehicles deploy along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on Oct. 13, 2023.
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A woman comforts injured Palestinian girls waiting at the hospital to be checked, as battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day, in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 12, 2023.
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An Israeli soldier patrols near Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel on Oct. 12, 2023, close to the place where 270 revellers were killed by militants during the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7.
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A Palestinian man with a child reacts outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Oct. 12, 2023 as raging battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day.
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This picture taken on Oct. 11, 2023 shows an aerial view of buildings destroyed by Israeli air strikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City.
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Israeli troops search the scene of a Palestinian militant attack in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Aza on the border with the Gaza Strip on Oct. 11, 2023.
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People duck for cover upon hearing sirens warning of incoming fire in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Oct. 11, 2023.
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Smoke billows after a strike by Israel on the port of Gaza City on Oct. 10, 2023.
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Palestinians inspect the destruction from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City’s al-Rimal neighbourhood early on October 10, 2023.
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A Palestinian man sits in front of a charred building as a fire rages through its interior, following Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City’s al-Rimal district on Oct. 10, 2023.
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Israeli soldiers patrol an area in Kfar Aza, south of Israel bordering Gaza Strip, on Oct. 10, 2023.
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Lightning strikes as smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Oct. 9, 2023.
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An aerial picture shows the site of the weekend attack on the Supernova desert music festival by Palestinian militants near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel on Oct. 10, 2023.
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An Israeli soldier rests his head on an artillery gun barrel of an armored vehicle as Israeli soldiers take positions near the border with Gaza in southern Israel on Oct. 9, 2023.
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A member of the Palestinian civil defense carries a wounded boy rescued from the rubble of the Tattari family home, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on Oct. 9, 2023.
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Palestinians search for survivors after an Israeli airstrike on buildings in the refugee camp of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 9, 2023.
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Israeli army soldiers are positioned with their Merkava tanks near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on Oct. 9, 2023.
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A Palestinian points to the Ahmed Yassin mosque, which was levelled by Israeli airstrikes, in Gaza City early on Oct. 9, 2023.
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Palestinians evacuate the area following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City on Oct. 9, 2023.
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A Palestinian demonstrator throws rocks towards Israeli soldiers in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Oct. 8, 2023.
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A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike on Oct. 8, 2023.
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A man walks past an Israeli police station in Sderot after it was damaged during battles to dislodge Hamas militants who were stationed inside, on Oct. 8, 2023.
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Rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza City are intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defense missile system in the early hours of Oct. 8, 2023.
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Israeli police officers evacuate a family from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Rockets are fired toward Israel from Gaza, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Cars are on fire after they were hit by rockets from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis southern Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Israeli firefighters extinguish fire after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Israeli firefighters extinguish fire after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a parking lot in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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A young boy walks amid the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Israeli soldiers deploy in an area where civilians were killed in the southern city of Sderot on October 7, 2023.
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Palestinians walk away from the kibbutz of Kfar Azza, Israel, near the fence with the Gaza strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Cars burn after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a parking lot and a residential building in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Palestinian militants fire missiles at Israel in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
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Israeli soldiers head south near Ashkelon, Israel, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Smoke rises from an area near a power plant outside Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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A rocket from the Gaza Strip struck a street in Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Israeli security forces take cover during rocket attack siren warning as rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
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Palestinians take down the fence on the Israel-Gaza border and enter Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Residents look at damage after a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel is focusing its operations on the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war and where the military says Hamas has its central command and a labyrinth of tunnels. Hundreds of thousands have heeded Israeli orders in recent weeks to flee the north, where the city is located, even though Israel also routinely strikes what it says are militant targets in the south, often killing civilians.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians remain in the north, however, many sheltering at hospitals or U.N. schools. The north has been without running water for weeks, and the U.N. aid office said the last functioning bakeries shut down Tuesday for lack of fuel, water and flour. Hospitals running low on supplies are performing surgeries — including amputations — without anesthesia, it said.

Majed Haroun, who lives in Gaza City, said women and children go door to door asking for food, while those in shelters rely on local donations.

Ameer Ghalban, who pushed an older relative in a wheelchair down Gaza's main highway, said the two of them had each lived off one piece of bread a day for the past three. “The majority of people have left their land because the siege has become absolute in Gaza. We have no water, no electricity, and no flour,” he said.

The situation is little better in the south, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are packed into makeshift shelters. At one, 600 people must share a single toilet, according to the U.N. office.

An Israeli airstrike hit a family house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens of others, according to Iyad Abu Zaher, director of the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the dead and wounded were brought in. He said the toll could rise as medics and first responders searched the rubble.

A month of relentless bombardment in Gaza since the Hamas attack has killed more than 10,500 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. More than 2,300 are believed to have been buried by strikes that in some cases have demolished entire city blocks.

Some foreign passport holders and critically injured residents are being permitted to cross into Egypt.

More than 1,400 people have died in Israel since the start of the war, most of them civilians killed by Hamas militants during their incursion. Scores of hostages were also taken that day. Israel says 32 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, and Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel on a daily basis.

Israeli officials say thousands of Palestinian militants have been killed, and blame civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing it of putting civilians at risk by operating in residential areas. Gaza's Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its casualty reports.

The war has stoked wider tensions, with Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group trading fire along the border. More than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the war began, mainly during violent protests and gunbattles with Israeli forces during arrest raids. Some 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities along the borders with Gaza and Lebanon.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Amy Teibel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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