DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Masses of Palestinian families fled from the heart of Israel’s expanding ground offensive into Gaza’s few remaining, jam-packed refuges. As the military launched heavy strikes across the territory’s center and south, killing dozens, Palestinian health officials reported.
On foot or riding donkey carts loaded with belongings, a stream of people flowed into Deir al-Balah — a town that normally has a population of around 75,000. It has been overwhelmed by several hundred thousand people driven from northern Gaza as the region was reduced to debris.
Because U.N. shelters are packed many times over capacity, the new arrivals set up tents on sidewalks for the cold winter night. Most crowded onto streets around the town’s main hospital, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, hoping it would be safer from Israeli strikes.
Still, no place is safe in Gaza. Israeli offensives are crowding most of the population into Deir al-Balah and Rafah at the territory’s southern edge, as well as a tiny rural area by the southern coastline. Those areas continue to be hit by Israeli strikes that regularly crush homes full of people.
Israel has said its campaign in Gaza is likely to last for months, vowing to dismantle Hamas across the territory and prevent a repeat of its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Benny Gantz, a member of the country’s three-man War Cabinet, said the fighting “will be expanded, according to need, to additional centers and additional fronts.”
He and other Israeli officials also threatened greater military action against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, hiking fears of an all-out war on that front.
The two sides have exchanged fire almost daily across the border. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned Wednesday that “all options are on the table” if Hezbollah does not withdraw from the border area, as called for under a 2006 U.N. cease-fire.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “must understand that he’s next,” Cohen said.
DEATH, DISPLACEMENT, AND STARVATION
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has already been one of the devastating military campaigns” data-vars-item-type=”text” data-vars-unit-name=”658c2d38e4b0cd3cf0e43b73″ data-vars-unit-type=”buzz_body” data-vars-target-content-id=”https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-bombs-destruction-death-toll-scope-419488c511f83c85baea22458472a796″ data-vars-target-content-type=”url” data-vars-type=”web_external_link” data-vars-subunit-name=”article_body” data-vars-subunit-type=”component” data-vars-position-in-subunit=”3″>most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 21,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Some 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have fled their homes. U.N. officials say a quarter of Gaza’s population is starving under Israel’s siege, which allows in only a trickle of food, water, fuel, and other supplies.
The latest people to be displaced fled from several built-up refugee camps in central Gaza targeted in the latest phase of Israel’s ground assault. One of the camps, Bureij, came under heavy bombardment throughout the night as Israeli troops moved in.
“It was a night of hell. We haven’t seen such bombing since the start of the war,” said Rami Abu Mosab,
