Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories, Dec 6 (AFP/APP):Israeli forces were encircling southern Gaza’s main city on Wednesday, battling Hamas through streets and buildings in some of the most intense combat of the two-month war.
The focus of the conflict has shifted to the besieged territory’s south following fierce fighting and bombardment that reduced much of the north to rubble and forced nearly two million people to flee their homes.
Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers were seen on Tuesday near southern Gaza’s city of Khan Yunis, forcing already displaced civilians to pack up and flee again, witnesses told AFP.
“Our forces are now encircling the Khan Yunis area in the southern Gaza Strip,” Israel’s army chief Herzi Halevi said late Tuesday.
“We have secured many Hamas strongholds in the northern Gaza Strip, and now we are operating against its strongholds in the south.”
The fighting on Tuesday was “the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation” in late October, the army’s Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman said.
The Hamas-run health ministry said 25 people had died in a strike on Tuesday that hit a school where displaced people were sheltering.
Ambulances, trucks and other vehicles delivered bloodied, dust-covered people to Khan Yunis’s Nasser hospital, including children.
“My cousin called me and told me to come because my sister’s body was lying in a schoolyard,” resident Mohammed Saloul told AFP.