Israeli forces push deeper into southern and central Gaza as Palestinian casualties mount
U.S. approves another emergency weapons sale to Israel worth $147M US
Israeli tanks pushed deeper into districts in central and southern Gaza overnight under heavy air and artillery fire, residents said, pressing a deadly offensive that has razed much of the enclave and that Israel has said may last months more.
Fighting late on Friday and early Saturday was focused in al-Bureij, Nuseirat, Maghazi and Khan Younis, backed by intensive airstrikes that filled hospitals with injured Palestinians.
The bombardment has killed 165 Palestinians and injured 250 in the central Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, a senior health official in central Gaza said.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the biggest and most important medical facility in the south of the tiny, crowded territory, images posted online by the Palestine Red Crescent Society showed ambulances operating amid smashed streets, carrying injured children.
Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been forced from their homes by Israel's 12-week assault, triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and brought 240 hostages into the militant group's grasp.
The Israeli response has killed at least 21,600 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, and the conflict risks spreading across the region, drawing in Iran-aligned groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Bombardment has smashed houses, apartment blocks and businesses and put hospitals out of action. On Saturday, the Palestinian Culture Ministry said Israeli strikes had struck a medieval bathhouse. The old Great Mosque was hit earlier in the war.
Nuseirat resident Mustafa Abu Wawee said a strike hit the home of one of his relatives, killing two people.
"The [Israeli] occupation is doing everything to force people to leave," he said over the phone while searching along with others for four people missing under the rubble. "They want to break our spirit and will but they will fail. We are here to stay."
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday troops were reaching Hamas command centres and arms depots. Pictures released by the military showed soldiers moving across churned-up earth among ruins of destroyed buildings.
The Israeli military said it had destroyed a tunnel complex in the basement of one of the houses of the Hamas leader for Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza City.
More U.S. weapons for Israel
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved the sale of more artillery shells and other equipment to Israel without congressional review, the Pentagon said.
Blinken told Congress he approved a $147.5-million sale for equipment, including fuses, charges and primers, that is needed for 155-mm shells Israel bought previously.
It marked the second time this month that the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel.
The department cited the "urgency of Israel's defensive needs" as a reason for the approval, and argued that "it is vital to U.S. national interests to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against the threats it faces."
The emergency determination means the purchase will bypass the congressional review requirement for foreign military sales.
Vaccines delivered
In another development, UNICEF said on Friday it delivered at least 600,000 doses of vaccines to Gaza to protect children in the territory from diseases. Israel said it had facilitated the entry of vaccines into Gaza in co-ordination with the United Nations children's agency.
"With the dropping temperatures, the lack of clean water, lack of sanitation, we could expect the increase in respiratory diseases, in water-borne diseases and in skin diseases," World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told CBC News on Saturday.
The lack of aid getting into Gaza has been a major humanitarian concern since the start of the war.
Israel has only allowed access to the south of the enclave, where it started ordering all Gaza civilians to move to back in October, and aid agencies have said Israeli inspections have stopped all but a small fraction of needed supplies getting in.
An Israeli government spokesperson said on Friday it does not limit humanitarian aid and the problem was with its distribution inside Gaza.
Al-Bureij, Nuseirat and Khan Younis are three out of eight Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza that in normal times receive services from the UN Relief and Works Agency. The agency cares for Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during Israel's creation in 1948 and live in slum-like camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian journalist killed
A Palestinian journalist working for Al-Quds TV was killed along with some of his family members in an airstrike on their house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip on Friday, health officials and fellow journalists said. The news network identified him as Jaber Abu Hadrous.
Gaza's government media office says 106 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the Israeli offensive.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said last week that the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Hamas war were the deadliest recorded for journalists, with the most journalists killed in a single year in one location.
Most of the journalists and media workers killed in the war were Palestinian.
With files from The Associated Press and CBC News