Israeli forces fought Hamas through shell-blasted buildings in the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday as the plight of civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory worsened.
Gaza residents said Israeli troops were inching their way closer to the Al Shifa hospital, Gaza's biggest health facility, Reuters reported. Thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge there from the relentless Israeli bombardments.
Residents in Gaza City said Israeli tanks were stationed around the city. Both sides reported inflicting heavy casualties on one another in intense street battles.
Israel unleashed its assault on Gaza in response to a cross-border Hamas raid on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Palestinian officials said 10,569 Gaza residents had been killed as of Wednesday, about 40% of them children, while a humanitarian crisis has gripped the enclave, with basic supplies running out and buildings demolished by unrelenting Israeli bombardments.
Israel, which has vowed to wipe out Hamas, says 33 of its soldiers have been killed in its ground operation as they advanced into the heart of Gaza City.
Although the fighting is concentrated in the north, southern areas have also come under regular attack. In Khan Younis, Gaza's main southern city, residents picked through the rubble and twisted debris of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, hoping to find survivors, witnesses said.
"As deaths and injuries in Gaza continue to rise due to intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems pose an added danger: the rapid spread of infectious diseases," the World Health Organization said.
