Fighting for third day in north Gaza as thousands displaced
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Israel’s military operations are continuing in the Shujaiya area near Gaza City.
PHOTO: AFP
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GAZA STRIP - Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on June 29, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called “unbearable” living conditions in the territory.
An AFP correspondent reported ongoing explosions from the Shujaiya area near Gaza City, with a resident saying bodies were visible on the streets.
Israel’s military on June 29 said its operations were continuing in Shujaiya where fighting “above and below the ground” left a “large number” of militants dead.
A resurgence of fighting in the area comes months after Israel had declared the command structure of Hamas militants dismantled in northern Gaza.
On June 23, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “intense phase” of the war was winding down
The Gaza war has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, leading Iran on June 29 to warn of an “obliterating” war if Israel attacked Lebanon.
The war started with Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on southern Israel
The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, although the army says 42 are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,834 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It reported at least 69 deaths over the previous 48 hours.
Fleeing empty-handed
Mr Mohammed Harara, 30, said he and his family, young and old, felt as though they would become part of that toll.
He said they fled from their home in Shujaiya with nothing, “due to the bombardment by Israeli planes, tanks and drones” that they barely survived.
“We couldn’t carry anything from the house. We left the food, flour, canned goods, mattresses, and blankets,” Mr Harara said.
Israel’s military on June 28 said it was conducting “targeted raids” backed by air strikes against Hamas militants in the Shujaiya area.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “about 60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from the area last week.
AFPTV images on June 29 showed men moving belongings on a donkey cart. Some people were pushed in wheelchairs. Children walked with backpacks past piles of dusty debris.
“I saw a tank in front of the Shuhada mosque firing” at targets, said Mr Abdelkareem al-Mamluk. “There were martyrs in the street.”
On June 28, Hamas and the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad both said they were fighting in Shujaiya.
Elsewhere in the coastal territory, the civil defence agency on June 29 said four bodies were pulled from an apartment after an Israeli strike in the central region.
Farther south, in the Rafah area, witnesses reported dead and wounded after a new incursion by Israeli troops.
A medical centre director, Mr Tarek Qandeel, said the facility in Al-Maghazi, central Gaza, was seriously damaged in the bombing of a neighbouring house, making it the latest Gaza medical facility affected by the war.
The UN, in a report on June 28 that cited Gaza’s Health Ministry, said “about 70 per cent of health infrastructure has been destroyed”.
The aunt and brother of a child, killed in the aftermath of overnight Israeli bombardment in Al-Maghazi in the central Gaza, mourning outside a hospital in Deir el-Balah on June 25.
PHOTO: AFP
No bathrooms
Separately, a UN spokeswoman, Ms Louise Wateridge, said by video link that she had just returned to central Gaza after four weeks outside the territory.
“It’s really unbearable,” Ms Wateridge said, describing a “significantly deteriorated” situation.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food,” and people are returning to live in “empty shells” of buildings.
In the absence of bathrooms, they are “relieving themselves anywhere they can”, she said.
The UN says most of Gaza’s population is displaced, but fallout from the war has also uprooted people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, where Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire.
Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides.
Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.
‘Psychological warfare’
In a June 29 post on social media, Iran’s mission to the UN in New York said it “deems as psychological warfare” Israeli threats to “attack” Lebanon.
But it added such a move would lead to an “obliterating” war that could involve “all resistance fronts”, a reference to Iran-backed groups in the region.
Among those are Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have for months been targeting international shipping in the Red Sea area. The rebels say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
On June 28, the Houthis claimed a “direct hit” on a tanker in the Red Sea, but a maritime security agency run by Britain’s Royal Navy reported no damage.
The US Navy has retaliated against Houthi targets for such attacks, and on June 28, the US military said its forces had destroyed seven drones and a control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the previous day. AFP
