GAZA: With 195 deaths reported in just over 24 hours, the Palestinian death toll from indiscriminate Israeli bombardment has crossed 21,000.

On Wednesday, explosions lit up the sky over the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, as a strike hit a house near Al-Amal hospital, killing 22 people and wounding 34, the Gaza health ministry said.

Heavy firefights also raged again around Gaza City in the north, while an air strike wounded 11 people near Rafah, which is bursting at the seams with internally displaced people.

AFPTV footage showed Palestinians who had been sheltering in a UN-run school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp fleeing south, seeking safety from the bombardment.

WHO says 21 of 36 hospitals in Gaza non-functional; Hamas denies IRGC claim of ‘revenge for Qasim Suleimani’s killing’

Residents also reported heavy fighting east and north of the Al-Bureij district and in the nearby village of Juhr Ad-Deek, where they said Israeli tanks are stationed.

Displaced Gazans “don’t know where to go”, said one of them, declining to be named. “First, we’re displaced to Nuseirat, then to Rafah.” Even schools “are no longer safe” in Gaza, said the man. Internet and telephone services that were cut on Tuesday were gradually being restored in the central and southern areas of Gaza, the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel said on X, formerly Twitter.

“This war’s objectives are essential and not simple to achieve,” armed forces chief Herzi Halevi said late Tuesday. “There­fore, the war will continue for many more months.

“A solution must be reached... Implement a ceasefire instead of bringing in aid.” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, in an interview on Egyptian television, charged that the Gaza war “goes beyond a catastrophe and a genocide”.

“Netanyahu’s plan is to get rid of the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority,” said Abbas, who is based in the occupied West Bank.

WHO warning

The population of Gaza is in “grave peril”, the head of the World Health Organization warned Wednesday, citing acute hunger and desperation throughout the war-torn Palestinian territory.

The WHO said it delivered supplies to two hospitals on Tuesday — one in the north and one in the south — with 21 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip no longer functioning at all.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the international community to take “urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardising the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease”.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2023