Israeli forces were still fighting Hamas in Gaza on Tuesday, reporting ground fighting and air strikes on 70 targets across the enclave in the last 24 hours.

There was no let-up in Gaza’s devastating war between Israel and Hamas on Tuesday. More than seven months of deadly warfare caused a humanitarian catastrophe, leaving the majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants threatened with starvation and an estimated 75% displaced, according to the UN.

“Frankly, we’re running out of words to describe what’s happening in Gaza. We’ve described it as a catastrophe, a nightmare, hell on earth. It is all that, and worse,” Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations for the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), summed up on Monday before the UN Security Council.

The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data. Of the 252 people taken hostage at the time, 124 are still being held in Gaza, 37 of them dead, according to the army.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a devastating offensive in the Gaza Strip in retaliation. It resulted in the killing of at least 35,647 people, most of them civilians, including at least 85 in the last 24 hours, according to data from the Palestinian territory’s Ministry of Health on Tuesday.

Hospital Under Siege

In the center of the Palestinian territory, airstrikes targeted the Al-Bureij camp on Tuesday, according to witnesses. In the south, Israeli warships fired on Khan Younis and doctors at the European hospital reported several injuries caused by an airstrike that hit a house.

Israeli aircraft have hit around 70 targets in the last 24 hours in the Gaza Strip, with the army saying it has “eliminated several” fighters in the south, center and in Jabalia.

In Jabalia, the World Health Organization reported that the Al-Awda hospital had been “under siege” for two days, and that 170 patients and staff were trapped there, reporting sniper fire and a rocket strike.

Israel launched ground operations in parts of Rafah on May 7, despite opposition from the international community, including its major ally the USA, which is concerned for the more than one million civilians trapped in this town on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army has ordered mass evacuations from Rafah, where it says it wants to destroy the last battalions of Hamas – which Israel considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States and the European Union – and its network of tunnels, and rescue hostages.

“Since October 2023, 75% of Gaza’s population – or 1.7 million people – have been forcibly displaced within Gaza, many as many as four or five times, not least because of repeated calls to evacuate issued by the Israeli army,” said Ocha’s Director of Operations.

Since Israel seized control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt from the Palestinians two weeks ago, the delivery of humanitarian aid has come to a virtual standstill, especially fuel, which is essential for hospitals and humanitarian logistics.

According to Wosornu, 1.1 million people in the Gaza Strip are facing “catastrophic levels of hunger.”

With AFP