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Israeli raids claim hundreds of lives in Gaza, unrest in West Bank heightens

Sulaiman Umar
03 Dec, 2023
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DUBAI: Israeli air raids on Rafah, Khan Younis and Nuseirat refugee camp killed hundreds of Palestinians, reports from the Gaza Strip on Sunday said, while Israeli settlers attacked two Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.

In Gaza, an account called the Gaza media office reported on Sunday that at least 700 people were killed by Israeli bombing overnight.

The Hamas-led interior ministry also said that seven Palestinians were killed and several injured in an Israeli raid on a house east of Rafah city in southern Gaza earlier in the day.

Palestinian News Agency WAFA quoted local sources as saying warplanes bombed two homes in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 13 people.

Palestinian health officials reported that Israeli planes destroyed several houses in Al-Karara town near Khan Younis that killed several others.

The southern part of Gaza, including Khan Younis, is where hundreds of thousands of people displaced from the north of the enclave had sought refuge.

On Sunday morning, the Israeli military’ posted a statement on X ordering Palestinians the Gaza Strip to immediately evacuate half a dozen areas in and around Khan Younis.

The military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee instructed them to move to what he described as “well-known IDP (internally displaced person) shelters” west of the city, including south toward Rafah, and included a map highlighting the areas.

With renewed fighting stretching into a third day, residents feared the air and artillery bombardment was just the prelude to an Israeli ground operation in the southern strip that would pen them into a shrinking area and possibly try to push them across into Egypt.

‘Safe zones’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel was coordinating with the US and international organizations to define “safe areas” for Gaza civilians.

But UN officials and people in Gaza say it is difficult to heed Israeli evacuation orders in real time because of patchy Internet access and no regular supply of electricity amid Israel’s military offensive.

In the West Bank, Israeli settlers attacked two Palestinian villages late on Saturday, killing one man and torching a car, Palestinian authorities said.

The Palestinian ambulance service said a 38-year-old man in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, in the northern West Bank, was shot in the chest and died as residents confronted settlers and Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli military said soldiers arrived at the scene and used riot dispersal means and live fire to break up the confrontation between residents and settlers. It said Palestinians shot fireworks in response and an Israeli and four Palestinians were injured. The incident was being examined and had been handed over to police, it said.

In another incident, Wajih Al-Qat, head of the local council of the village of Madama near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, said a group of about 15 settlers burned the car and broke the windows of a house with stones.