More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are virtually trapped as Israeli airstrikes rained down Thursday on multiple locations across the strip, including parts of the south that Israel had declared as "safe zones."
The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza since the Oct. 7 surprise incursion by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north and head to what it called "safe zones" in the south, strikes continued across the territory overnight, while Palestinian groups fired sporadic rockets into Israel.
A residential building in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter, was among the places hit. Medical personnel at Nasser Hospital said they received at least 12 dead and 40 wounded.
The bombardments came after Israel agreed Wednesday to allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to Gaza, the first crack in a punishing 11-day siege. Many among Gaza's 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.
The announcement of a plan to bring water, food and other supplies into Gaza came as fury over a Tuesday night attack on Gaza City's Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital spread across the Middle East.
Israel, however, tried to deflect the blame for the attack that killed hundreds on to Palestinian groups.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who visited Israel on Wednesday, also backed the Israeli account of the incident.
Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza City's main hospital, where doctors already facing critical supply shortages were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, without anesthesia.
More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza's population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate. Most have crowded into U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.
Following airstrikes early Thursday, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from a building in Khan Younis, where many residents were believed trapped under misshapen bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks.
A small, soot-covered child, unconscious and dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building and rushed toward a waiting ambulance.
Gaza's Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.
The Israeli military said it killed a top Hamas member in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza.
In northern areas that Israel warned to evacuate, airstrikes also hit three residential towers in al-Zahra, the Gaza Interior Ministry said, as well as homes along the border with Israel. Israel has massed troops in the area and is expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said. In comparison, around 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since Oct. 7.
Exchange of fire between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah has also flared in recent days amid fears the war on Palestinians could spread across the region.
