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Israeli combat vehicle near the border between Israel and Gaza (archive photo)
Photo: Ilia Yefimovich / dpa
Israel's military has announced a four-hour tactical lull in fighting at a camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday. Military activities there would be temporarily suspended for humanitarian reasons, an army spokesman said on Platform X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday in Arabic. This should enable the population to get supplies of supplies.
From 10 a.m. to 14 p.m., there will be a local and temporary tactical suspension of military humanitarian activities in the Rafah camp for the purpose of resupply, the post said.
Israel's military had earlier called on residents of the fiercely contested city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip to seek safety in Rafah near the Egyptian border. Thousands of Palestinians have reportedly found shelter in tents.
According to the UN, after the expansion of Israeli attacks, there is hardly any room left for the internally displaced. Rafah, for example, is "bursting at the seams," criticized Thomas White, the Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), a few days ago. The army also designated a route for civilians on Saturday to bypass a route previously used for escape through embattled Khan Yunis. The path taken so far is dangerous, the military warned.
During the night, Israeli tanks reportedly continued to advance into areas in the central and southern Gaza Strip, according to residents of the affected areas. There was heavy air and artillery shelling. The fighting on Friday evening and Saturday morning was concentrated in Al-Buraidj, Nuseirat and Khan Yunis.
Health authority in the Gaza Strip speaks of another hundred dead
These sites are three of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip that received aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine before the war. According to a representative of the Hamas-controlled health authority in Gaza on Saturday, about 24 Palestinians have been killed and 158 wounded in the past <> hours. The figures cannot be independently verified at present, but according to the UN and other observers, the agency's figures have proven to be credible overall in the past.
On Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israeli troops were in the process of reaching Hamas command centers and weapons depots. The military said it had destroyed a tunnel complex in Gaza City. It is said to have been located under a house of Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar in the Gaza Strip.
In addition, the Israeli army reported that it had destroyed two Hamas military installations in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. The deployment of Israeli ground forces against Hamas is supported by the Israeli navy with fire from the sea, it added.
Smoke rose over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday. A reporter from the AFP news agency reported continued artillery shelling. Further south, more and more people sought refuge in Rafah, near the border with Egypt. There was no sign of the fighting abating.
The Gaza war has been going on for almost three months now. Hundreds of fighters from Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the EU and the US, entered Israel on October 7 and committed atrocities, mainly against civilians. According to Israeli figures, about 1140,250 people were killed and about 129 more were taken hostage to the Gaza Strip, <> of whom are still believed to be in the hands of Hamas.
Israel announced the annihilation of Hamas after the unprecedented attack by the Islamists and has been bombing targets in the Gaza Strip ever since. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, more than 21,500 people have been killed so far.
A detailed report on the humanitarian situation in Gaza can be found here: Deaths continue – even if the shooting stops
hej/AFP/Reuters