LAST UPDATE | 12 May
GAZA’S CIVIL DEFENCE agency has said that two doctors were killed in an Israeli air strike on the city of Deir al-Balah in a central area of the Palestinian territory.
Israel launched fresh strikes on Gaza today after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah, with the United Nations warning an outright invasion of the crowded southern city risked an “epic” disaster.
“The bodies of Doctor Muhammad Nimr Qazaat and his son, Doctor Youssef, were recovered (as they were killed) because of an Israeli raid on the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, and they were transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah,” the Gaza agency said in a statement.
Israeli troops defied international opposition this week and entered eastern areas of the city, effectively shutting a key aid crossing and suspending traffic through another.
Israel said 300,000 people had fled the city since the army urged people to leave earlier in the week.
Residents piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again.
“We don’t know where to go,” said Farid Abu Eida, who was preparing to leave Rafah, having already been displaced there from Gaza City.
“There is no place left in Gaza that is safe or not overcrowded… There’s nowhere we can go.”
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged an immediate halt to the Israel-Hamas war, the return of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
Residents were told to go to the “humanitarian zone” of Al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah.
Hamas accused Israel of “expanding the incursion into Rafah to include new areas in the centre and the west of the city”.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said “we have eliminated dozens of terrorists in eastern Rafah” and the army said troops were fighting “armed terrorists” at the crossing and had found “numerous underground tunnel shafts”.
Meanwhile, Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron said that Israel should not carry out an offensive in Rafah without a “clear plan” to protect people.
“For there to be a major offensive in Rafah, there would have to be an absolutely clear plan about how you save lives, how you move people out the way, how you make sure they’re fed, you make sure that they have medicine and shelter and everything,” he told Sky News television.
“We have seen no such plan … so we don’t support an offensive in that way,” he added.
International outrage mounted at Israel’s operations in Rafah.
EU chief Charles Michel said on social media that Rafah civilians were being ordered to “unsafe zones”, denouncing it as “unacceptable”.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had started transferring 22 patients from a field hospital in Rafah, saying Israel’s operations in the city were “making it impossible to provide lifesaving medical assistance”.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive to Hamas’s 7 October attack has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
While mediation efforts towards a truce and hostage release appeared to stall, Hamas’s armed wing said a hostage who appeared in a video it released on Saturday had died from wounds suffered in an Israeli strike.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said Nadav Popplewell, a British-Israeli man, had been wounded in a strike a month ago and died “because he did not receive intensive medical care because the enemy has destroyed the Gaza Strip’s hospitals”.
The Israeli military did not offer any comment on the video and AFP was unable to independently verify its authenticity.
US President Joe Biden said on Saturday a ceasefire would be achieved “tomorrow” if Hamas released the hostages.
A US State Department report on Friday said it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had violated norms on international law in its use of weapons from the United States, but did not find enough evidence to block shipments.
The State Department submitted its report two days after Biden publicly threatened to withhold certain bombs and artillery shells if Israel went ahead with an all-out assault on Rafah, where the UN says 1.4 million have been sheltering.
The Biden administration already paused delivery of 3,500 bombs as Israel appeared ready to invade Rafah.
Hamas says Israel’s “continued control” and closure of the Rafah crossing exacerbates the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the besieged territory.
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