The U.S. worked Tuesday to break a deadlock over delivering aid to millions of increasingly desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip, which has been besieged and under assault by Israel since a brutal attack by Hamas militants, as U.S. President Joe Biden prepared to head to the region.
Meanwhile, flaring violence along Israel’s border with Lebanon led to concerns over a widening regional conflict that diplomats were working to prevent.
Unrelenting Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people Tuesday in south Gaza, where Israel told civilians from the north to seek shelter ahead of an expected ground offensive.
Wounded people were rushed to the hospital after heavy attacks outside the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, Gaza residents reported. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former health minister, reported 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.
An Associated Press reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis since early Tuesday. Family members came to claim the bodies, wrapped in white bedsheets, some soaked in blood.
An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing nine members of the family living there. Three members of another family that had evacuated from Gaza City were killed in a neighboring home. The dead included one man and 11 women and children. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.
“When we see a target, when we see something moving that is Hamas, we’ll take care of it. We’ll handle it, said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman.
Israel has sealed off and bombed Hamas-ruled Gaza since the militant attack on southern Israel last week killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and left about 200 captive in Gaza.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700 others in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. Nearly two-thirds of the dead were children, said Medhat Abbas, a Gaza Health Ministry official. The strikes have not stopped Hamas militants from continuing to barrage Israel with rockets launched from Gaza.
Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. Emergency teams struggled to rescue people while cut off from the internet and mobile networks, running out of fuel and exposed to unceasing airstrikes. On Monday Israeli warplanes struck the headquarters of the Civil Defense in Gaza City, killing seven paramedics. Another 10 medics and doctors have been killed on the job, health authorities said.
Israel has massed troops at the border for an expected ground offensive, but Hecht said Tuesday no concrete decisions have been made.
