Israeli forces pressed on with a new ground offensive in Gaza City Wednesday as strikes overnight across the Palestinian territory killed at least 16 people, including women and children, hospital officials.
Hundreds of thousands remained in the city, the territory’s largest and already in ruins from nearly two years of war and struggling with a famine.
The latest Israeli operation, which started Tuesday, further escalates a conflict that has roiled the Middle East and likely pushes any ceasefire farther out of reach. The military, which says it wants to “destroy Hamas’ military infrastructure” hasn’t given a timeline for the offensive, but there were indications it could take months.
Many have been attempting to relocate from the city, where 1 million people once lived, to the southern Gaza Strip following Israeli military calls for a full evacuation.
Here’s the latest:
Qatar condemns Israel’s ground offensive
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement Wednesday saying they condemned “in the strongest terms” Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza.
The ministry wrote on X that the operation marked an “extension of the war of genocide” against the Palestinians.
Qatar is incensed over an Israeli strike last week that killed five Hamas members and a local security official.
Israeli strikes overnight kill at least 16 across the Gaza Strip
Gaza hospital officials said Wednesday that women and children were among the 16 killed in overnight on the territory.
More than half of the dead were killed in strikes on Gaza City, including a child and his mother at their apartment in the Shati refugee camp, according to officials from the Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties.
In central Gaza, the Al-Awda Hospital said an Israeli strike hit a house in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, killing three, including a pregnant woman. Two parents and their child were also killed when a strike hit their tent in the Muwasi area west of the city of Khan Younis, said officials from the Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were brought.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the strikes.
Aid groups call for pressure on Israel to stop the Gaza City offensive
A coalition of leading aid groups urged the international community Wednesday to take stronger measures to stop Israel’s offensive on Gaza City after a commission of UN experts found Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
A statement from the aid groups said countries “must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene” and that this moment “demands decisive action.”
The message was signed by leaders of over 20 aid organizations operating in Gaza, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Anera and Save the Children.
Rushing to save Gaza’s archeological items
Ahead of Israel’s anticipated new ground offensive focusing on Gaza City, aid workers last week managed to save thousands of priceless archaeological artifacts in Gaza from destruction after Israel targeted a warehouse building in a strike.
Israeli military said Hamas used the building for intelligence. It contained items from over 25 years of excavations, including from a 4th-century Byzantine monastery.
International aid groups negotiated with the Israeli military for a delay to move the artifacts. Workers rushed to pack the items in trucks, but some were broken or left behind. The artifacts are now in a safer location but remain in danger, housed outside, as the Israeli offensive widens.
The UN chief warns there can be no Mideast peace without a two-state solution
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the alternative, one state under which Palestinians would be deprived of their land and rights, would be “absolutely intolerable.”
The Palestinians hope at least 10 countries will recognize a state of Palestine at a session during the upcoming U.N. General Assembly meeting.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes a two-state solution and is boycotting the session, along with close ally the United States.
“Without a two-state solution,” Guterres warned on Tuesday “there will be no peace in the Middle East, and extremism will expand everywhere in the world with the consequences that I consider extremely, extremely negative.”
He says the international community must “make sure the two-state solution prevails.”
