By Mariam Dagga and Samy Magdy | Associated Press
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Israeli strikes and gunfire have killed at least 33 Palestinians in Gaza On Saturdays, including people who protect in tents or look for scarce food, local hospitals said as a Famine in the largest city in Gaza Sparks new pressure on Israel over his 22 -month offensive.
The Minister of Defense of Israel has warned that Gaza City can be destroyed In a new military operation, perhaps only a few days away, even while the famine there is spreading there.
Auxiliary groups have long been warned that the war, fueled by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attackand months of Israeli limitations on food and medical supplies that have entered Gaza Starve.
Israel has rejected the data -based famine statement as ‘an outright lie’. Stop service efforts are on hold because mediators are waiting for Israel’s next steps.
Women and children beaten and killed in tents
Israeli strikes have killed at least 17 people in southern Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to Morue records and health officials in the Nasser Hospital. The officials said the strikes were aimed at tents that shelter displaced in Khan Younis.
“Awad, why did you leave me?” A little boy asked the plastic packaged body of his brother.
Another grieving family member, Hekmat Foujo, argued for a truce.
“We want to rest,” Foujo said through her tears. “Have some grace with us. ‘
In northern Gaza, the Israeli gunfire killed at least five auxiliary seekers near the Zikim intersection with Israel, where UN and other truck cellars enter the territory, health officials of Sheikh Radwan Field Hospital told the AP.
Eleven people were killed in attacks elsewhere, according to hospitals and the Palestinian red crescent.
Israel’s army said it was not aware of a strike in Khan Younis at that location and investigated the other incidents.
Grave fire and bustle for food
Mohamed Saada was one of the thousands in search of food from a delivery in the Zikim area on Saturday and one of the many who left empty-handed.
“I came here to bring food for my children, but could not get anything, because of the enormous number of people and the difficulty of the situation between the shootings and the trucks that ran over people,” he said.
Some wore bags such as lentils and flour. Others wore the wounded, also on a wooden pallet. They navigated stinking ponds and the rubble of war while the temperature above 92 degrees reached Fahrenheit (33 Celsius).
The report on Friday by the integrated classification of the food protection phase said famine In Gaza, the city is likely to spread as fighting and limitations on the help. It said that nearly half a million people in an accompanying one will be fourth of the population of Gaza-CONNFONTED with a catastrophic hunger.
The rare statement came after Israel had imposed a blockage of 2 1/2 months on Gaza earlier this year and then resumed some access with a focus on a new private help supplier supported by the US, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
In response to global indignation about Pictures of emaciated childrenIsrael has also allowed airdrops and new land deliveries, but the UN and others say it is still far enough.
AP journalists have seen chaos on roads that led to assistance, and there have been almost daily reports of Israeli troops that shot to help seekers. The army of Israel says that the warning shots fire when people approach troops or pose a threat.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that it has allowed sufficient help to enter during the war, accusing Hamas of starving the hostages it has.
An increase in Israeli air strikes this month
With ground troops that are already active in strategic areas, the military operation in Gaza City Could start in an area with hundreds of thousands of citizens within a few days.
Auxiliary group doctors without borders, or MSF, said the clinics around Gaza City see a high numbers of patients while people flee. Caroline Willemen, MSF project coordinator there, has noticed a clear increase in air strikes since the beginning of August.
“Those who have not moved wonder what they should do,” she told the AP. “People want to stay, they are rather endlessly displaced, but they also know that at some point it will be very dangerous to stay.”
The army of Israel has said that troops work on the outskirts of Gaza City and in the Zeitoun neighborhood. Israel says that Gaza City is still a Hamas stronghold, with a network of militant tunnels.
Stops the efforts of the subjects waiting for Israel’s response
Many Israelis fear that the attack on Gaza City could damn the 20 hostages that are assumed to have survived since 2023. It is thought that there are another 30 dead. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested A week ago for a deal to put an end to the fighting and to bring everyone home.
Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had instructed civil servants to start immediate negotiations to release hostages and End the war on the conditions of Israel. It was unclear whether Israel would return to conversations mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar after Hamas said it accepted a new proposal from Arab mediators.
Hamas has said that hostages will release in exchange for ending the war, but refuses disarmament without the establishment of a Palestinian state.
US President Donald Trump has pronounced frustration about Hamas’ attitude, suggesting that the militant group is less interested in making few hostages alive.
“I actually think (the hostages are) in many ways more safer if you went inside and you really went inside and you did it,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
The Ministry of Health of Gaza said that at least 62,622 Palestinians were killed in the war, including missing people who have now been confirmed dead by a special judicial committee for the ministry.
The number of malnutrition-related deaths rose by eight to 281, the ministry said.
Israeli protest against extreme right-wing security minister
A small group of Israelis protested against the extreme right-wing Minister of Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, while he went to a synagogue in Kfar Malal, north of Tel Aviv. Videos showed the minister a fight with the protesters.
“We don’t want him in our village. Our message is to bring the hostages back,” one of the demonstrators, Boaz Levinstein, told the AP.
Ben-Gvir is an important partner in the political coalition of Netanyahu and an avid opponent of reaching a deal with Hamas, who see hostages’ families as the only way to guarantee the release of loved ones.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Sam Mednick in Jerusalem and Michelle Price in Washington contributed to this report.
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