Israel says it’s prepared to fight for months or longer to defeat Hamas, as its ground offense intensifies with more airstrikes and artillery fire.
The military pressed on with its bombing of Gaza on Tuesday after saying its campaign to destroy Hamas has left the Palestinian militant group on the “the verge of dissolution”.
Humanitarian leaders fear the besieged territory will soon be overwhelmed by disease and starvation, and are piling diplomatic pressure on Israel to boost efforts to protect civilians.
With only a trickle of humanitarian aid reaching a small portion of Gaza, residents face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods. Some observers worry that Palestinians will be forced out of Gaza altogether.
Fierce fighting raged on Tuesday, with Hamas saying clashes had taken place in central Gaza and witnesses reporting deadly Israeli strikes in the south of the territory.
Israel faces international outrage after its military offensive has killed at least 18,200 Palestinians in Gaza, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the enclave’s health ministry. About 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, where UN agencies say there is no safe place to flee.
‘On the verge of dissolution’
Strikes on Monday targeted Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis, now the epicentre of the fighting, as well as Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt where tens of thousands of people are seeking shelter.
“Hamas is on the verge of dissolution — the IDF is taking over its last strongholds,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late Monday.
Israel’s army chief Herzi Halevi visited the centre of Khan Yunis on Monday, where he said his forces were “securing our accomplishments in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the entrance in the southern part of the Strip, and also deep down into the ground”.
The UN estimates 1.9 million of the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, half of them children.
