Israel-Hamas war: Israeli jets strike Gaza refugee camp as US fails to win immediate support for pause in fighting

Palestinians comfort a crying man after losing relatives under the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Saturday. Photo / AP

Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory’s Hamas rulers, despite US appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.

The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets on Saturday to demand an immediate ceasefire.

Israel has rejected the idea of halting its offensive, even for brief humanitarian pauses proposed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his current tour of the region. Instead, it said that the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers were “encountering the full force” of its troops.

“Anyone in Gaza City is risking their life,” Israel’s Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant said.

Large columns of smoke rose as Israel’s military said it had encircled Gaza City, the initial target of its offensive against Hamas. Gaza’s health ministry has said more than 9400 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in nearly a month of war, and that number is likely to rise as the assault continues.

Palestinians look at the destruction after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip in Khan Younis. Photo / AP

Early Sunday, airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 33 people and wounding 42, said Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesman for the health ministry.

He said first responders, aided by residents, were still searching the rubble for dead or possible survivors.

The camp is located in the evacuation zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians in Gaza to seek refuge as it focuses its military offensive in the northern areas.

Despite such appeals, Israel has continued its bombardment across Gaza, saying it is targeting Hamas fighters and assets everywhere. It has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

Critics say Israel’s strikes are often disproportionate, considering the large number of women and children killed in such attacks.

Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday after talks in Israel with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there could be no temporary ceasefire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Arab countries want an immediate ceasefire, saying “the whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come”.

Blinken, however, said, “It is our view now that a ceasefire would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7.” He said humanitarian pauses can be critical in protecting civilians, getting aid in and getting foreign nationals out, “while still enabling Israel to achieve its objective, the defeat of Hamas”.

An Israeli woman calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is comforted by another protester after an argument with a right-wing Israeli in Tel Aviv, Israel on Saturday, November 4, 2023. AP Photo / Bernat Armangue

As he left church in Delaware on Saturday, US President Joe Biden hinted at progress in efforts to convince Israel to agree to a humanitarian pause, responding “yes” to reporters’ questions about any forward movement on the subject. He did not elaborate.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that Blinken “should stop the aggression and should not come up with ideas that cannot be implemented”. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing, who goes by Abu Obeida, said in a speech fighters had destroyed 24 Israeli vehicles and inflicted casualties in the past two days.

Egyptian officials said they and Qatar were proposing humanitarian pauses for six to 12 hours daily to allow aid in and casualties to be evacuated. They were also asking for Israel to release a number of women and elderly prisoners in exchange for hostages, suggestions Israel seemed unlikely to accept. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the press on the discussions.

Israel has repeatedly demanded that northern Gaza’s 1.1 million residents flee south, and on Saturday, it offered a three-hour window for residents to do so. An Associated Press journalist on the road, however, saw nobody coming. The head of the government media office in Gaza, Salama Maarouf, said no one went south because the Israeli military had damaged the road.

Israel asserted Hamas “exploited” the window to move south and attack its forces. There was no immediate Hamas comment on that claim, which was impossible to verify.

Palestinians carry a dead person from under the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Saturday, November 4, 2023. AP Photo / Abed Khaled

Some Palestinians said they didn’t flee because they feared Israeli bombardment.

“We don’t trust them,” said Mohamed Abed, who sheltered with his wife and children on the grounds of al-Shifa hospital, one of thousands of Palestinians seeking safety at medical centres in the north.

Swaths of residential neighbourhoods in northern Gaza have been levelled in airstrikes. UN monitors say more than half of northern Gaza’s remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are sheltering in UN-run facilities. But deadly Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said it has lost contact with many in the north.

On Saturday, two strikes hit a UN school sheltering thousands just north of Gaza City, killing several people in tents in the schoolyard and women who were baking bread inside the building, according to the UN agency. Initial reports indicated that 20 people were killed, said spokeswoman Juliette Touma. The health ministry in Gaza said 15 people were killed at the school and another 70 were wounded.

Also on Saturday, two people were killed in a strike by the gate of al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza City, according to health ministry spokesman Medhat Abbas. And a strike hit near the entrance to the emergency ward of al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, injuring at least 21, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

The World Health Organisation called attacks on healthcare in Gaza “unacceptable”.

At least 1115 Palestinian dual nationals and wounded have exited Gaza into Egypt, but on Saturday, authorities in Gaza didn’t allow foreign passport holders to leave because Israel was preventing the evacuation of Palestinian patients for treatment in Egypt, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.

The UN said about 1.5 million people in Gaza, or 70 per cent of the population, have fled their homes.

Food, water and the fuel needed for generators that power hospitals and other facilities is running out.

Palestinians strike concrete while looking for survivors under the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Photo / AP

Turkey said it was recalling its ambassador to Israel for consultations, and Turkish media reported Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could no longer speak to Netanyahu in light of the bombardment.

Thousands of Israelis protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem, urging him to resign and calling for the return of roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas. Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility for the October 7 attack in southern Israel that killed more than 1400 people.

“I find it difficult to understand why trucks with humanitarian aid are going to monsters,” said Ella Ben Ami, whose parents were abducted. She called for aid to be halted until the hostages are released.

Thousands of people also joined a demonstration of hostages’ families in Tel Aviv.

Air raid sirens sounded on Saturday evening in southern Israel as Hamas launched rockets into Ashkelon. Rocket fire has continued in the area throughout the conflict, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

Fears continued of a new front opening along Israel’s border with Lebanon. The Israeli military said it had struck militant cells in Lebanon trying to fire at Israel, as well as an observation post for Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. Throughout the war, Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily. Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war in 2006 that ended in a tense stalemate.

“We are not interested in a northern front, but we are prepared for any task,” Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, said after touring the border. He said the nation’s air force is “preserving most of its might for the Lebanon front”, according to a video statement.

Among the Palestinians killed in Gaza are more than 3900 Palestinian children, Gaza’s health ministry said, without providing a breakdown of civilians and fighters.

The Israeli military said four more soldiers have died during the Gaza ground operation, bringing the confirmed death toll to 28.