At the least six Palestinians have been killed in Gaza’s southern metropolis of Rafah, in response to the Palestine Purple Crescent Society (PRCS), and several other houses have been destroyed as Israeli forces pushed deeper into town and pressed additional into Shujayea in northern Gaza.
Israeli tanks, which re-entered Shujayea 4 days in the past, fired shells in direction of a number of homes, leaving households trapped inside and unable to go away, residents mentioned.
The United Nations Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that “60,000 to 80,000 individuals had been displaced” from Shujayea in latest days.
For many who stay, “our lives have change into hell”, mentioned 50-year-old resident Siham al-Shawa.
She informed the AFP information company that individuals had been trapped as strikes may occur “anyplace” and “it’s troublesome to get out of the neighbourhood below hearth”.
“We have no idea the place to go to guard ourselves,” she mentioned.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, mentioned residents who managed to flee the neighbourhood say the dimensions of destruction is “huge”.
He mentioned the central areas of Gaza Metropolis have additionally been “pounded” by Israeli forces.
“Up to now hour, a residential flat was focused. Medical sources we’ve talked to say not less than 15 individuals have been killed at the moment within the north after individuals’s houses had been immediately hit by artillery shells,” Abu Azzoum mentioned.
He famous that in Rafah, there was a continuation of “indiscriminate Israeli assaults as residents flee for his or her lives”.
“Within the al-Mawasi district – declared a ‘secure zone’ by Israel’s army – they’ve been setting hearth to makeshift tent camps the place displaced Palestinians have been sheltering,” he added.
Talking at a weekly cupboard assembly on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his stance that there was no substitute for victory within the warfare towards Hamas.
“We’re dedicated to preventing till we obtain all of our aims: Eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages, guaranteeing that Gaza by no means once more constitutes a risk to Israel and returning our residents securely to their houses within the south and the north,” he mentioned.
‘Empty shells’
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan in the meantime mentioned there’s been no progress in ceasefire talks. He mentioned on Saturday that the Palestinian group remains to be prepared to debate any truce proposal that ends the almost nine-month assault.
Whereas the offensive centered on Gaza, within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, one man was killed and 5 had been wounded in an Israeli strike close to town of Tulkarem, in response to the Palestinian well being ministry.
The armed wing of Hamas and the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported fierce preventing in each Shujayea and Rafah, saying their fighters had fired antitank rockets and mortar bombs towards Israeli forces working there.
Arab mediators’ efforts, backed by the USA, have stalled. Hamas says any deal should finish the offensive and convey a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it can settle for solely momentary pauses within the preventing till Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is eradicated.
The Palestinian well being ministry mentioned 43 our bodies of slain Palestinians arrived at hospitals within the final 24-hour reporting interval. At the least 111 others had been wounded.
Israel’s offensive has to this point killed not less than 37,877 individuals, in response to the Gaza well being ministry, and has left the closely built-up coastal enclave in ruins.
Israeli tanks pushed deeper into a number of districts within the east, west and centre of Rafah, close to the border with Egypt, on Sunday, and medics mentioned six individuals had been killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Shaboura, within the coronary heart of town.
Six our bodies from the Zurub household had been transferred to Nasser Hospital within the close by metropolis of Khan Younis, the place dozens of kin paid their respects.
🚨The Palestine Purple Crescent crews retrieved the our bodies of six martyrs from the Zourab household after their house was focused by Israeli occupation forces in western Rafah, southern #Gaza Strip.
📷Filmed by PRCS volunteer: Mohamed Al-Saksik. pic.twitter.com/lpxJGfJaew— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) June 30, 2024
Residents mentioned the Israeli military had torched the Al-Awda mosque within the centre of Rafah, one of many metropolis’s finest recognized.
Israel has mentioned its army operations in Rafah are geared toward eradicating the final armed battalions of Hamas. It continues to severely limit the entry of much-needed humanitarian assist, drugs, and gas into the enclave, which is on the verge of famine.
The United Nations and different reduction businesses have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian disaster and the specter of hunger that the assault and Israeli siege have introduced for Gaza’s 2.4 million individuals.
“Every thing is rubble,” mentioned Louise Wateridge from the UN Reduction and Works Company for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), talking Friday from town of Khan Younis.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no meals. And now, individuals are residing again in these buildings which might be empty shells.”