May 13, 2024
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 20,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas, according to claims by health officials in the Hamas-controlled enclave, as Israel expands its ground offensive and orders tens of thousands more people to leave their homes.
Israel has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is removed from power in Gaza and all the hostages taken during its Oct. 7 cross-border attack are freed.
Israel has resisted international pressure to scale back its offensive and has said it would press on until Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years, has been destroyed.
The military has said that months of fighting lie ahead in southern Gaza, an area packed with the vast majority of the enclave's 2.3 million people, many of whom were ordered to flee combat in the north earlier in the war.
Since then, evacuation orders have pushed displaced civilians into ever-smaller areas of the south as troops focus on the city of Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest.
The military said late Thursday that it is sending more ground forces, including combat engineers, to Khan Younis to target Hamas militants above ground and in tunnels. On Friday, it ordered tens of thousands of residents to leave their homes in Burej, an urban refugee camp, and surrounding communities, also in the south.
The air and ground campaign also continued in the north, even as Israel says it is in the final stages of clearing out Hamas militants there.
Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry claimed Friday that it has documented 20,057 deaths in the fighting and more than 50,000 wounded. It does not differentiate between combatant and civilian deaths.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll during its intense air and ground campaign, citing the group’s use of crowded residential areas for military purposes.
Israel declared war after Hamas militants stormed across its border and killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 others. Israel’s military says 139 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive. It says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including about 2,000 in the past three weeks, but it has not presented any evidence to back up the claim.
Meanwhile, phone and internet services were gradually being restored late Thursday, after the latest communications blackout of 35 hours.
Repeated cuts in communications have hampered aid deliveries, which cover only a fraction of the humanitarian needs in Gaza.
An Israeli liaison officer with Gaza claimed there is no food shortage in Gaza, saying sufficient aid is getting through.
“The reserves in Gaza Strip are sufficient for the near term,” Col. Moshe Tetro, a defense official, said from the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing, opened by Israel several days ago amid international demands to improve the flow of aid. Tetro did not elaborate.
