The Israeli military stormed a hospital again and placed another under siege in western Khan Younis on Monday, while they killed and injured several people after hitting two universities and three schools providing shelter to 30,000 displaced Palestinians in airstrikes and shelling.
The army targeted five shelters in Khan Younis that housed 30,000 displaced people, the government media office in Gaza said in a statement.
The Israeli army used reconnaissance planes and artillery shells to attack Al-Aqsa University, University College of Applied Sciences, Khaledia School, Al-Mawasi School, and Industry School in Khan Younis, the statement said.
The shelling claimed the lives of several people and injured others who sought refuge in shelters that Israel claimed were safe, it added.
Earlier, several people were killed and injured in an intensified Israeli air and ground offensive in Khan Younis city amid fierce clashes with Palestinian resistance groups.
The incursion forces advanced to the outskirts of the Al-Mawasi neighborhood, west of the city, and fired with automatic weapons at the displaced people, resulting in several deaths and injuries, according to an Anadolu Agency (AA) correspondent.
He added that violent clashes and artillery shelling continue from the south and west of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, and ambulances are having difficulty moving to recover the dead and evacuate the wounded.
The Israeli army also dropped bombs on various areas of Khan Younis before dawn, while the sounds of heavy explosions were heard from time to time, and thick clouds of smoke were visible in the sky, particularly near the Nasser Medical Complex.
Palestinian medical sources reported that several dead and wounded have been transported from the vicinity of Al-Aqsa University in the Al-Mawasi area, which houses thousands of displaced people, to the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in Rafah, in the far south of Gaza.
According to local sources, the Israeli army destroyed dozens of homes in the Qizan Abu Rashwan and Qaa al-Qurain neighborhoods south of Khan Younis during violent clashes between Israeli forces and resistance elements.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced on Monday that it lost contact with its crews in Khan Younis due to the "ground invasion" of Israeli tanks in the area.
In recent days, the Israeli army has expanded its military and ground incursions in Khan Younis.
On Sunday evening, Israeli Security Minister Yoav Galant said his army will increase its operations in Khan Younis in the coming days until the "war's objectives are met."
Israeli forces, advancing deep into western Khan Younis in Gaza's bloodiest fighting of the new year so far, stormed one hospital and placed another under siege on Monday, cutting the wounded off from trauma care, Palestinian officials said.
Troops advanced for the first time into the al-Mawasi district near the Mediterranean Coast, west of Khan Younis, the main city in southern Gaza. There, they stormed the Al-Khair hospital and were arresting medical staff, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra told Reuters.
There was no immediate word from Israel on the situation at the hospital. The military spokesperson's office had no comment.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said tanks had also surrounded another Khan Younis hospital, al-Amal, headquarters of the rescue agency, which had lost contact with its staff there.
Qidra said at least 50 people were killed overnight in Khan Younis, while the sieges of medical facilities meant dozens of dead and wounded were beyond the reach of rescuers.
"The Israeli occupation is preventing ambulance vehicles from moving to recover bodies of martyrs and the wounded from western Khan Younis," he said.
Residents said bombardment from air, land and sea was the most intense in the southern sector of Gaza since the war began in October, as Israeli tanks surged across Khan Younis toward the Mediterranean coast.
Video filmed from afar showed scattered civilians wandering a ghost city, crowded with tents with abandoned laundry flapping on lines, as gunfire rattled and columns of smoke rose into the sky.
The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now penned into Rafah just south of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah just north of it, crammed into public buildings and vast camps of tents made from plastic sheets lashed to wooden frames.
Buried in hospital grounds
At Nasser Hospital, the only major hospital still accessible in Khan Younis and the largest still functioning in Gaza, a video showed the trauma ward overwhelmed with wounded being treated on a floor splashed with blood. Relatives wailed, surrounding small wounded children being treated several to a bed.
A young man, Rabie Salem, sat on the floor cradling a small wounded girl in his arms. They had finally reached the hospital in the morning after waiting for an ambulance through the night, while his mother lay dying. She had told him not to worry about her and to help the rest of the family, he said, weeping: "Now she is gone."
Ahmed Abu Mustafa, an emergency doctor, said he hadn't slept for 30 hours and was treating 10-11 patients in an intensive care unit with four beds.
Outside, men were digging graves inside the hospital grounds because it was no longer safe to venture out to the cemetery. A man placed the tiny body of a toddler wrapped inside a white shroud into a shallow hole in the sand. Authorities said 40 people were buried there.
"It's very difficult to leave the complex and go to any cemetery and bury them because we're under siege and anyone who leaves the complex is targeted," said Abdelkarim Ahmad, participating in the burials.
Israel says it will not stop fighting until it annihilates Hamas. But Palestinians and some Western military experts say that objective may be unachievable given the group's diffuse structure and deep roots in Gaza, which it has ruled since 2007.
A growing, outspoken number led by relatives of the remaining hostages say the government should do more to reach a deal to free them, even if that means reining in its offensive.
About 20 relatives of hostages stormed a parliamentary committee session in Jerusalem on Monday, demanding the lawmakers do more to try to free their loved ones.
One woman held up pictures of three family members held in Gaza: "Just one I'd like to get back alive, one out of three!" she cried.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of relatives of hostages that there was no truth to reports of a deal to free them in a cease-fire.
"There is no real proposal by Hamas. It's not true. I am saying this as clearly as I can because there are so many incorrect statements which are certainly agonizing for you," Netanyahu's office quoted him as telling the group.
Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following an Oct. 7 cross-border incursion by Hamas, killing at least 25,105 Palestinians and injuring 62,681. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza's population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the U.N.