Israel pounded targets in the crowded southern half of the Gaza Strip on Saturday and ordered more neighborhoods designated for attack to evacuate, driving up the death toll even as the United States and others urged it to do more to protect Gaza civilians a day after a truce collapsed. At least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed Friday morning, following the weeklong truce with the territory's ruling militant group Hamas, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Several homes were hit across Gaza on Saturday, with multiple casualties reported in a strike that flattened a house on the outskirts of Gaza City, per the AP.
Separately, the ministry announced that the overall death toll in Gaza since the Oct. 7 start of the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 15,200, a sharp jump from the previous count of more than 13,300 on Nov. 20. The ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it said Saturday that 70% of the dead were women and children. It also said more than 40,000 people had been wounded since the start of the war. With the end of the truce, Israel has been urged by the United States, its closest ally, to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. The appeal came after a blistering air and ground offensive in the first weeks of the war devastated large areas of northern Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians and displacing hundreds of thousands. Some 2 million Palestinians, almost the entire population of Gaza, are now crammed into the territory's southern half.
It wasn't clear if Israel's military would heed appeals to spare civilians. The military said Saturday that it hit more than 400 Hamas targets across Gaza over the past day, using airstrikes and shelling from tanks and navy gunships. It included more than 50 strikes in the city of Khan Younis and surrounding areas in the southern half of Gaza. At least nine people, including three children, were killed in a strike on a house in Deir al-Balah city in the south, according to the hospital where the bodies were taken. The hospital also received seven bodies of others killed in overnight airstrikes, including two children. In northern Gaza, an airstrike flattened a residential building hosting displaced families in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya on the outskirts of Gaza City. Meanwhile, Palestinian militant groups in Gaza said they fired a barrage of rockets on southern Israel.
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Sirens were heard in communities near the Gaza Strip, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. In the clearest sign yet that a return to negotiations for further truces was unlikely, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed negotiators to return to Israel. Israel says it's targeting Hamas operatives and blames civilian casualties on the militants, accusing them of operating in residential neighborhoods. It claims to have killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence. Israel says 77 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive in northern Gaza. The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel; 240 people or so were taken captive. The renewed hostilities have heightened concerns for 136 hostages who, per the Israeli military, are still held by Hamas and other militants after 105 were freed during the truce.
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