NEWS: ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR: HOSTILITIES RESUME AS TRUCE FAILS
175 people have been reportedly killed in Gaza as fighting resumes shattering the Israel-Hamas truce.
Hostilities resumed in Gaza on Friday after a seven-day
truce brokered by Qatar collapsed. Sources in the region, familiar with Israeli
thinking, said that Israel's offensive in Gaza was unlikely to stop until the
three top Hamas commanders are dead or captured.
Israel's warplanes pounded Gaza on Friday after talks to
extend a week-old truce with Hamas collapsed, sending wounded and dead
Palestinians into hospitals and others onto the streets to seek safety.
Israel and Hamas accused each other of wrecking the
negotiations, though the White House singled out the Palestinian militant
group, saying it had failed to produce a new list of hostages to release to
enable extension of the truce.
The U.N. said the fighting would worsen an extreme
humanitarian emergency. "Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza"
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva, said.
Israel's military said its ground, air and naval forces had
struck more than 200 what it called "terror targets" in the enclave
since the morning.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he had been in
one of Israel's war jets during the assault to watch it up close. "The results are impressive. Hamas only understands
force and therefore we will continue to act until we achieve the goals of the
war," he said.
Egyptian and regional sources say Israel has informed
several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian
side of Gaza's border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the
enclave after war ends.
Medics and witnesses said Friday's bombing was most intense
in Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of
thousands of Gazans have been sheltering from fighting further north.
Gazans said they feared that the bombing of southern parts
of the enclave could herald an expansion of the war into areas Israel had
previously described as safe.
Leaflets dropped on eastern areas of the main southern city
Khan Younis ordered residents of four towns to evacuate, not to other areas in
Khan Younis as in the past, but further south to the crowded town of Rafah on
the Egyptian border.
"You have to
evacuate immediately and go to the shelters in the Rafah area. Khan Younis is a
dangerous fighting zone. You have been warned," said the
leaflets, written in Arabic.
Each of the warring sides blamed the other for causing the
collapse of the truce by rejecting terms to extend the daily release of
hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian detainees.
The pause, which began on Nov. 24, had been extended twice,
and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages
each day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign
hostages were freed, mediators failed at the final hour to find a formula to
release more, including Israeli soldiers and civilian men.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it
held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli
soldiers.
Qatar, which has played a central role in mediation efforts,
said negotiations were still going on with Israelis and Palestinians to restore
the truce, but that Israel's renewed bombardment of Gaza had complicated its
efforts.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, ending a trip to the
region, said Hamas had started firing rockets before the pause in hostilities
ended and had "reneged on commitments it made in terms of releasing
certain hostages".
He added he had met officials from Arab states and discussed
how to create a "durable, lasting and secure peace".
Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, has ruled Gaza since
2007.
Israel's assault has laid waste to much of the territory.
Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United
Nations say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed and thousands
more are missing and feared buried under rubble.
Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Hamas
ally, said it had carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions at
the border in support of Palestinians.
The Israeli army said its artillery struck sources of fire
from Lebanon and its air defenses had intercepted two launches.
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