EPAThe Israeli army says it has launched a ground operation against Hamas in the Bureij refugee camp and east of the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Troops supported by airstrikes targeted “terrorists and terrorist infrastructure above and below ground,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
According to the Médecins Sans Frontières association, at least 70 dead and 300 injured, the majority of them women and children, have been transported to a hospital in Deir al-Balah since Tuesday.
It comes as US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators meet in Doha and Cairo to discuss how to finalize a new ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
The United States said Tuesday it was still awaiting a response from Hamas to what it described as an Israeli proposal. underlined by US President Joe Biden Friday.
Qatar said it had handed the plan to Hamas representatives and indicated it was still awaiting a clear position from the Israeli government.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which around 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage.
Since then, at least 36,580 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Bureij is one of the smallest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps. It covers an area of 0.5 km² (0.2 square miles) and had 46,000 inhabitants registered with the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) before the war.
The camp lies just south of the Wadi Gaza Riverbed and the IDF’s “Central Gaza Strip Corridor” – a section of territory controlled by Israeli forces that runs east-west from the border with Israel to the Mediterranean Sea, dividing Gaza in two.
The Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps are also located near Bureij, while the town of Deir al-Balah is approximately 5 kilometers to the southwest.
All four areas are currently populated by people displaced by fighting elsewhere, including more than a million people who have fled the southern city of Rafah since the start of the war. Israeli ground operation there a month ago.
Earlier this year, IDF troops carried out a ground operation against Hamas fighters in the camps in central Gaza which lasted several weeks.
On Wednesday, the IDF said the new “targeted” operation in Bureij and eastern Deir al-Balah aimed to dismantle “terrorist infrastructure located several kilometers from the border with Israel, above and below ground.”
“The activity began with a series of airstrikes against terrorist targets, including military complexes, weapons storage facilities and underground infrastructure,” the statement added. “During the strikes, several Hamas terrorists were eliminated.”
EPAA man from Bureij told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today program that his family fled the camp as Israeli bombardment intensified on Tuesday.
“We were stunned that the army again carried out a ground operation in Bureij,” he said. “We were hit by shells falling on us from all sides, falling on citizens’ houses, in the streets… which resulted in the death of a number of citizens.”
“The situation in general is extremely difficult,” he added. “We left our homes in order to preserve our lives and those of our children. »
A young woman said: “Fragments fell into our house and some residential apartments in our building… We survived because we were all on the lower floors. »
“We were in a residential building filled with about 40 people, some of whom were residents of the building itself and others were displaced people from the north and south, in Rafah… Now where should we go from Bureij? »
On Wednesday morning, the Palestinian Wafa news agency cited doctors and rescue workers as saying that at least 11 people had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on several houses in Maghazi overnight.
Two more people were killed in a strike on a house near the entrance to Bureij, while two others were killed by artillery fire in the Abu al-Ajen area, southeast of Deir al-Balah, he said.
Later, Médecins Sans Frontières said its medical team on the ground had described the situation at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah – one of the last functioning health facilities in central Gaza – as “apocalyptic”.
The association said women and children made up the majority of the 70 dead and 300 injured taken to hospital in the past 24 hours, with many patients suffering from severe burns, shrapnel wounds and , fractures and other traumatic injuries.
“The smell of blood when I walked into the emergency room (this morning) was just overwhelming. People are lying on the floor. People are lying outside…bodies are being brought in in white plastic bags. Families stand over them and pray.” » declared Karin Huster, MSF medical representative, in an audio message.
“It’s just an emotionally overwhelming situation. It’s impossible for anyone to deal with it.”
ReutersAt the start of its operation in Rafah on May 6, the IDF asked civilians to evacuate to an “expanded humanitarian zone” stretching from the coastal area of al-Mawasi to Deir al-Balah, where it indicated that They would find tents, field hospitals and relief. supplies.
But Unrwa warned on Monday that space for displaced families in Deir al-Balah was “running out, as people continue to arrive in the hope of safety where there is none.”
“Living conditions are not at all suitable for families and essential services, and supplies are limited,” the statement said.
The Israeli military also said Wednesday that its troops were continuing their “targeted operations” in Rafah. He added that they “located weapons and eliminated armed terrorists”, without providing further details.
Residents told Reuters that Israeli tanks launched raids into central Rafah and deeper to the west before retreating to the east and south.
