Written by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Arafat Barbakh
CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – Heavy Israeli tank fire and aerial bombardment hit the city of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip on Friday evening, residents said, after reports that about 200 people had been killed within 24 hours in the Israeli campaign against Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) activists.
Some residents said that the sound of gunfire indicated fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in Khan Yunis. Planes also carried out a series of air strikes on the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian medics and journalists.
Israeli forces are bombing the city of Khan Yunis in preparation for the expected advance in the main southern city, which they controlled areas of in early December.
Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that the forces reached Hamas command centers and weapons depots. The Israeli military also said it destroyed a tunnel complex in the basement of one of the homes of Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza City.
Twelve weeks after Hamas militants stormed Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage, Israeli forces have destroyed much of the Gaza Strip as they pursue their war goal of eliminating the Islamist militants.
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have fled their homes at least once, and many are on the move again, often forced to take shelter in makeshift tents or huddled under tarpaulins and plastic sheeting on open ground.
Gaza health authorities said another 187 Palestinians were confirmed killed in Israeli raids within 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 21,507 – about 1% of Gaza's population. It is feared that thousands of other bodies will be buried under the rubble of destroyed neighborhoods.
A Palestinian journalist was killed
Health sector officials and fellow journalists said that a Palestinian journalist working for Al-Quds satellite channel was killed along with a number of his family members in an Israeli air strike on their home in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
This brings the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli attack to 106, according to the government media office in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said last week that the first 10 weeks of the war between Israel and Gaza were the bloodiest for journalists, with the highest number of journalists killed in a single year in one place.
Most of the journalists and media workers killed in the war were Palestinians. The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists' report said it was “particularly concerned by the clear pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military.”
Earlier this month, a Reuters investigation concluded that an Israeli tank crew killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six journalists in Lebanon on October 13 when it fired two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming a cross-border bombing.
Israel said earlier that it has not and will not deliberately target journalists, and that it is doing everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties, but the high death toll has raised concern even among its strongest allies.
The United States called for reducing the war in the coming weeks and moving to operations targeting Hamas leaders. So far Israel shows no sign of doing so.
Israel helps deliver vaccines to Gaza
Israel said on Friday it had facilitated the entry of 49,130 vaccine doses, enough to vaccinate nearly 1.4 million people against diseases including polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and meningitis.
A statement issued by the Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry agency that coordinates with the Palestinians, said that the vaccine transfer process had been coordinated with UNICEF, in order to prevent the spread of the disease in the Strip.
Gaza depends almost entirely on food, fuel and medical supplies from abroad, and Israel does not have access to them except at the southern end. International agencies say the supplies allowed through Israeli inspections constitute only a small portion of Gaza's vast needs.
Last week, Israel bowed to international pressure to open a second crossing, which it said would double the number of supply trucks per day to 200, but only 76 were able to enter on Thursday, according to the United Nations, compared to 500 in peacetime.
An Israeli government spokesman said on Friday that the government does not impose restrictions on humanitarian aid and that the problem lies in its distribution inside Gaza.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Arafat Barbakh in Gaza; Writing by Daphne Psalidakis; Editing by Grant McCall)
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