GAZA: Israel stepped up its assault on Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on Wednesday, pushing tanks westwards and prompting accusations from Jordan that its field hospital in the city had been badly damaged by nearby shelling.

The Jordanian army said it held Israel responsible for a “flagrant breach of international law” in what it said was the damage to the facility as a result of Israeli shelling in the vicinity. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

People in and around another hospital, Nasser, fled as tanks approached the district overnight following an Israeli army statement that it had come under fire from the area.

Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed by Israeli air strikes that damaged homes near the hospital, one of only a third of Gaza’s hospitals still partially operational. Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said extra field hospitals were expected to be up and running in the coming days.

Explosions from shelling and air strikes sounded further west in Khan Younis as the Israeli tanks moved on, with lines of thick black smoke rising from bomb sites. Witnesses said tanks and bulldozers had damaged a cemetery there before retreating to the city centre again.

Further south in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have moved on Israeli advice, people cried over several shrouded bodies, including of a young girl, Masa.

“We were asleep and then we found the missiles falling on us. We got up and couldn’t see anything. We started checking on each other. The girl was martyred,” said her aunt, Tahreer Shoman, adding that her siblings had been wounded but survived.

Fighting raged in densely populated Jabalia in northern Gaza on Wednesday, a day after Israeli tanks stormed back into parts of the north they had left last week.Communications were down across Gaza on Wednesday for a sixth day, leaving its Palestinian inhabitants, most of whom have been forced to flee several times, unable to receive warnings on social media from the movement of Israeli forces.

The lack of local mobile phone signals also robs people trapped in the rubble left by Israeli air strikes of the means to call for help.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2024