Is­raeli forces bom­bard­ed cities, towns and refugee camps across Gaza overnight and in­to Thurs­day, killing dozens of peo­ple in an air and ground of­fen­sive against Hamas that has widened to most of the ter­ri­to­ry and forced thou­sands more to flee from homes and shel­ters.

The war has al­ready killed over 20,000 Pales­tini­ans and dri­ven around 85% of the pop­u­la­tion of 2.3 mil­lion from their homes. Much of north­ern Gaza has been lev­elled, large­ly de­pop­u­lat­ed and iso­lat­ed from the rest of the ter­ri­to­ry for weeks. Many fear a sim­i­lar fate awaits the south.

Is­rael has vowed to dis­man­tle Hamas — which is still putting up stiff re­sis­tance, even in the north — and bring back more than 100 hostages still held by the mil­i­tants af­ter their Oct. 7 at­tack in­to south­ern Is­rael, in which some 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, were killed.

Is­rael has brushed off in­ter­na­tion­al calls for a cease-fire — say­ing it would amount to a vic­to­ry for Hamas.

The Unit­ed States — while pro­vid­ing cru­cial sup­port for the of­fen­sive — has urged Is­rael to take greater mea­sures to spare civil­ians and al­low in more aid. But aid work­ers say the amount of food, fu­el and med­ical sup­plies en­ter­ing is still far be­low what is need­ed, and 1 in 4 Pales­tini­ans in Gaza are starv­ing, ac­cord­ing to U.N. of­fi­cials.

STRIKES FROM NORTH TO SOUTH

An Is­raeli airstrike on a home in the north­ern town of Beit Lahiyeh — one of the first tar­gets of the ground in­va­sion that be­gan in Oc­to­ber — buried at least 21 peo­ple, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to a fam­i­ly mem­ber.

Bas­sel Kheir al-Din, a jour­nal­ist with a lo­cal TV sta­tion, said the strike flat­tened his fam­i­ly house and se­vere­ly dam­aged three neigh­bour­ing homes. He said 12 mem­bers of his fam­i­ly — in­clud­ing three chil­dren aged 2, 7 and 8 — were buried and pre­sumed dead, and that nine neigh­bours were miss­ing.

In cen­tral Gaza, Is­raeli war­planes and ar­tillery pound­ed the built-up Bu­reij and Nu­seirat refugee camps, lev­el­ling build­ings, res­i­dents said. Is­rael said this week it would ex­pand its ground of­fen­sive in­to cen­tral Gaza, and typ­i­cal­ly launch­es waves of airstrikes and shelling be­fore troops and tanks move in.

A hos­pi­tal in the near­by town of Deir al-Bal­ah re­ceived the bod­ies of 25 peo­ple killed overnight, in­clud­ing five chil­dren and sev­en women, hos­pi­tal records showed on Thurs­day. Non­stop ex­plo­sions could be heard through­out the night in the town — where hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple have sought shel­ter, with many spend­ing cold nights sleep­ing on side­walks.

“It was an­oth­er night of killing and mas­sacres,” said Saeed Moustafa, a res­i­dent of the Nu­seirat camp. He said peo­ple were still cry­ing out from the rub­ble of a house hit by an airstrike on Wednes­day.

“We are un­able to get them out. We hear their screams, but we don’t have equip­ment,” he said.

Far­ther south, in Khan You­nis, the Pales­tin­ian Red Cres­cent said a strike near its Al-Amal Hos­pi­tal killed at least 10 peo­ple and wound­ed an­oth­er 12. Much of the city’s pop­u­la­tion has left, but many are shel­ter­ing near Al-Amal and an­oth­er hos­pi­tal, hop­ing they will be spared from the bom­bard­ment.

AN­OTH­ER WAVE OF DIS­PLACE­MENT

Ra­mi Abu Mosab, who lives in the Bu­reij refugee camp, said thou­sands of peo­ple have fled their homes in re­cent days be­cause of the in­tense bom­bard­ment. He plans to re­main there be­cause he doesn’t feel that any­where in Gaza is safe.

“Here is death and there is death,” he said, “To die in your home is bet­ter.”

Bu­reij and Nu­seirat are among sev­er­al camps across the re­gion that were built to house hun­dreds of thou­sands of Pales­tin­ian refugees from the 1948 war sur­round­ing Is­rael’s cre­ation. They have since grown in­to crowd­ed res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods.

Some 700,000 Pales­tin­ian fled or were dri­ven from their homes dur­ing that con­flict, an ex­o­dus the Pales­tini­ans re­fer to as the Nak­ba, or cat­a­stro­phe. Some 1.9 mil­lion have been dis­placed with­in Gaza since Oct. 7.

As Is­rael has broad­ened its of­fen­sive, flee­ing Pales­tini­ans have packed in­to ar­eas along the Egypt­ian bor­der and the south­ern Mediter­ranean coast­line, where shel­ters and tent camps are over­flow­ing. Even in those ar­eas, Is­rael con­tin­ues to strike what it says are mil­i­tant tar­gets.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary blames the high civil­ian death toll on Hamas, which po­si­tions fight­ers, tun­nels and rock­et launch­ers in dense res­i­den­tial ar­eas. But the mil­i­tary rarely com­ments on in­di­vid­ual strikes.

Is­rael’s of­fen­sive in Gaza has al­ready been one of the most dev­as­tat­ing mil­i­tary cam­paigns in re­cent his­to­ry. More than 21,100 Pales­tini­ans, most of them women and chil­dren, have been killed, ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The count doesn’t dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants.

The mil­i­tary says it has killed thou­sands of mil­i­tants, with­out pre­sent­ing ev­i­dence, and that 167 of its sol­diers have been killed in the ground of­fen­sive. —DEIR AL-BAL­AH, Gaza Strip (AP)

___

Sto­ry by WAFAA SHU­RAFA AND SAMY MAGDY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press
Samy Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Na­jib Jobain con­tributed from Rafah, Gaza Strip.