KHAN YOUNIS (Gaza Strip), Nov 9 : Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight into Thursday as ground forces battled Hamas militants in dense urban neighbourhoods near a hospital where tens of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering.
Gaza’s largest city is the focus of Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas following its deadly October 7 incursion — and the Israeli military says Hamas’ main command centre is located in and under the Shifa Hospital complex.
The militant group and hospital staff deny that claim. Troops were around 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the hospital, according to its director.
Amid a drumbeat of international concern over dire conditions inside Gaza, mediators were closing in on a possible deal for a three-day cease-fire in exchange for the release of around a dozen hostages held by Hamas, according to two Egyptian officials, a United Nations official and a Western diplomat.
The deal would also allow a small amount of fuel to enter the territory, which is currently reliant on generators for electricity, for the first time since the war began.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said any temporary cease-fire would have to be accompanied by the release of hostages. Israel has said around 240 people are held captive, and their plight has galvanised Israeli support for the war despite growing international concerns.
Western and Arab officials gathered in Paris on Thursday to discuss ways of providing more aid to civilians in Gaza, a day after the Group of Seven wealthy democracies, which includes close allies of Israel, called for the “unimpeded” delivery of food, water, medicine and fuel, and for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting.
The possible cease-fire deal is being brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, a Persian Gulf country that mediates with Hamas.
A senior US official said the Biden administration has suggested Israel tie the length of a pause to a certain number of hostages being released in a formula that could be used for additional pauses. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of impacting the delicate, ongoing negotiations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen declined to elaborate on any emerging deal in an interview with army radio, saying “I’d recommend not talking about what we’ve agreed to — it hurts the negotiations”.
Meanwhile, Israeli ground forces battled near Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, where people fleeing the fighting are sheltering alongside patients, according to the hospital’s general director, Mohammed Abu Selmia.
The Israeli military says the complex is a Hamas command centre and senior militant leaders are hiding there, using the facility as a shield. Hamas and hospital staff say the military is creating a pretext to strike it.
Scores of wounded people were rushed to Shifa overnight, Abu Selmia told The Associated Press on Thursday. “At dawn, a shell landed very close to the hospital, but thank God only a few people had minor injuries,” he said.
“The conditions here are disastrous in every sense of the word,” he said. “We’re short on medicine and equipment, and the doctors and nurses are exhausted. … We’re unable to do much for the patients.”
International journalists who entered the north on a tour led by the Israeli military on Wednesday saw heavily damaged buildings, fields of rubble and toppled trees along the Mediterranean shoreline.
Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel, and some 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. (AP)
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