Gazans were facing growing hunger and risk of diseases as Israeli tanks and warplanes continued to pummel southern Gaza Tuesday, according to the U.N.
In Khan Younis, southern Gaza's main city which Israeli troops began storming last week, residents said tank shelling was now focused on the city center.
One said tanks were operating on Tuesday morning in the street where the house of Yahya al-Sinwar, a Hamas leader, is located.
An elderly Palestinian, Tawfik Abu Breika, said his residential block in Gaza’s Khan Younis was hit without warning by a fresh Israeli airstrike Tuesday that had brought down several buildings and caused casualties.
"The world’s conscience is dead, no humanity or any kind of morals," Breika told Reuters as neighbors sifted through rubble. "This is the third month that we are facing death and destruction, ... This is ethnic cleansing, complete destruction of the Gaza Strip to displace the whole population."
Further south in Rafah, which borders Egypt, health officials said 22 people including children were killed in an Israeli air strike on houses overnight. Civil emergency workers were searching for more victims under the rubble.
Residents said the shelling of Rafah, where the Israeli army this month ordered people to head for their safety, was some of the heaviest in days.
"At night we can’t sleep because of the bombing and in the morning we tour the streets looking for food for the children, there is no food," said Abu Khalil, 40, a father of six.
"I couldn’t find bread and the prices of rice, salt or beans have doubled several times over. This is starvation," he said. "Israel kills us twice, once by bombs and once by hunger."
An Israeli ground assault that had been confined to the north has expanded to the southern half of the Gaza Strip since a weeklong truce collapsed at the start of December.
Residents and aid agencies say that means no place is now safe in a territory where bombing has already rendered the vast majority of people homeless and nearly all areas are entirely cut off from food, medicine and fuel.
Hunger is worsening, with the U.N. World Food Programme saying half of Gaza's population is starving.
The U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) said Tuesday that limited aid distributions were taking place in the Rafah district, but "in the rest of the Gaza Strip, aid distribution has largely stopped over the past few days, due to the intensity of hostilities and restrictions of movement along the main roads."
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said Israeli forces had stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday and were rounding up males, including medical staff, in the hospital courtyard. Israel's military did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the report.
Richard Peeperkorn, World Health Organization Representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said the WHO was considering a Gaza Health Ministry request for help with a potential evacuation of patients and staff from the hospital. The WHO said Sunday the risk of disease in Gaza had grown while the health system had been reduced to a third of its pre-conflict capacity.
Israel's retaliatory assault after the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion has killed at least 18,205 people and wounded nearly 50,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which says many thousands more dead are uncounted under the rubble or beyond the reach of ambulances.
One hundred and five Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground invasion began in late October.
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly was likely to pass a draft resolution on Tuesday that mirrors the language of a demand for a cease-fire blocked by a U.S. veto in the 15-member Security Council last week.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight. Some diplomats predict the vote will win more support than the assembly's October call for "an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce."
Washington has backed Israel's position that a cease-fire would only benefit Hamas, although it has also called on its ally to do more to limit harm to civilians.
U.S. President Joe Biden told a White House celebration for the Jewish holiday of Hannukah on Monday that his commitment to Israel was "unshakeable."
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Israel was no exception to U.S. policy that any country receiving U.S. weapons must comply with the laws of war.
