GAZA: Israeli tanks battled their way to the heart of Khan Younis yesterday in a major new push into the main city of the southern Gaza Strip, as health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said about 18,000 Palestinians had been killed in the war.

Residents said tanks had reached the main north-south road through the middle of Khan Younis after intense combat through the night that had slowed the Israeli advance from the east. Warplanes were pounding the area west of the assault.

The air rumbled with the constant thud of explosions and thick columns of white smoke rose over the densely crowded city, filled with people displaced from elsewhere in the enclave. As morning broke near a city-centre police station, the constant rattle of machinegun fire could be heard. Streets there were deserted apart from an old woman and a girl riding on a donkey cart.

"It was one of the most dreadful nights, the resistance was very strong, we could hear gunshots and explosions that didn't stop for hours," a father of four displaced from Gaza City and sheltering in Khan Younis told foreign news agency. He declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, after fighters burst across the fence on Oct. 7 and went on a rampage through Israeli towns, gunning down families in their homes, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages.

After weeks of fighting concentrated in the north, Israel launched its ground offensive in the south this week with a storm of Khan Younis. With combat now under way along nearly the entire length of the Gaza Strip, international aid organisations say its 2.3 million people have been left with nowhere to hide.

The World Health Organisation said it would be all but impossible to improve the "catastrophic" situation in Gaza, where medical needs had surged and the risk of disease grown while the health system had been greatly reduced.

The World Health Organisation's executive board on Sunday adopted a resolution calling for immediate, unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza following the WHO chief's remarks citing concerns over unimaginable conditions being faced by the medics in the beleaguered territory.

The 34 countries on the board adopted the resolution by consensus, even though some, notably the United States, had reservations about the dearth of references to the Hamas attacks of October 7. In addition to calling for immediate humanitarian relief, the resolution also demands the provision of exit permits for patients. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the board had managed to achieve "the first consensus resolution on the conflict [...] since it began two months ago."

The resolution brought forward by Afghanistan, Morocco, Qatar and Yemen  seeks the supply and replenishment of medicine and medical equipment to the civilian population and ensure access to medical treatment. Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi has accused Israel of trying to “empty Gaza of Palestinians” in a campaign that amounts to “genocide”.

“What we are seeing in Gaza is not simply the killing of innocent people and the destruction of their livelihoods, but a systematic effort to empty Gaza of its people,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said at the Doha Forum.

“This is a war that cannot be won. Israel has already suffered a strategic defeat.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Washington is in almost constant contact with the Israelis “to ensure they understand what their obligations are”. Blinken's comments in conversation with ABC followed an earlier statement to CNN where he called it “imperative” for Israeli military operations to protect Palestinian civilians.

Published in The Daily National Courier, December, 11 2023

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