Israel attacks Gaza while the UN declares the area “uninhabitable”

The Palestinian territory has become “uninhabitable” following three months of violence that threatens to envelop the entire region, the UN warned as Israel attacked Gaza on Saturday.

Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians have taken refuge from the conflict, were reported by AFP correspondents early on Saturday.

The UN has warned of an escalating humanitarian crisis as disease and starvation grow more widespread, and civilians are still bearing the brunt of the fighting.

The future of Gaza, according to Abu Mohammed, 60, who moved to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, is “dark and gloomy and very difficult”.

The UN humanitarian director, Martin Griffiths, declared on Friday that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable” with much of the region already destroyed to ruins.

Conflicts, starvation, and a lack of health care have led to “a deadly cycle that threatens over 1.1 million children” in Gaza, according to a warning from the UN department for children’s welfare.

According to military spokesman Daniel Hagari, Israeli forces were still “fighting in all parts of the Gaza Strip, in the north, center, and south” late on Friday.

Hagari stated that in the wake of the execution of a senior Hamas commander in a strike in Beirut, Israeli forces were keeping a “very high state of readiness” close to the Lebanon border. Although Israel has not taken credit for the strike, a US defense official informed AFP that Israel was the one who carried it out.

According to an AFP count based on official Israeli estimates, Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 caused the majority of the 1,140 casualties—citizens—and set off the Gaza War.

Around 250 hostages were also taken by the resistance fighters; 132 of them, according to Israel, are still in captivity; at least 24 of them are thought to have died.

At least 22,600 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s ceaseless shelling and ground invasion in retaliation, the majority of them were women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israeli strikes have struck portions of central Gaza as well as the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, according to AFP correspondents on Friday. According to a hospital in the capital city of Deir al-Balah, 35 people have died there.

According to the Israeli army, in the last 24 hours, its troops had “struck over 100 targets” in Gaza, including military outposts, rocket launchers, and armories.

According to the Gaza health ministry, 162 deaths were reported throughout that time.

After what the army characterized as an attempt to attack an Israeli tank, a fighter plane destroyed “an armed terrorist cell” by bombing Bureij’s central area overnight. In addition, the Israeli army declared that it had “killed a number of Palestinian militants” during fighting in Khan Yunis, which has developed into a significant theater of operations.

Under the Blue Beach Hotel in northern Gaza, tunnels that had been utilized “by terrorists as shelter from where they planned and executed attacks” were also allegedly discovered by Israeli troops.

On Friday, AFPTV captured whole families traveling to Rafah in overcrowded automobiles and on foot while carrying handcarts filled with belongings in an attempt to flee the bloodshed.

One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, stated, “We are escaping from Maan to Rafah after fleeing from Jabalia camp to Maan (near Khan Yunis). “(We have) no water, no electricity and no food.”

The Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis was the target of further shelling and drone fire, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, following the deaths of seven displaced people—among them a five-day-old infant—who were taking refuge in the facility.

A representative for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza stated, “We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe due to the spread of epidemics, with the hospital overcrowded with displaced people.”

Meanwhile, two Israeli ministers’ proposal to relocate Gazans outside of the region was harshly criticized by French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

Colonna told CNN on Friday that “it is not for Israel to decide what will happen to Gaza, which is Palestinian land.”

As part of a renewed effort to increase the flow of aid into the besieged zone and lower escalating tensions, top Western officials were in the area.

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey, where he was scheduled to speak with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the Gaza conflict. Prior to traveling the next week to Israel and the occupied West Bank, Blinken will also make stops in a number of Arab states.

According to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, Blinken intends to address “immediate measures to increase substantially humanitarian assistance to Gaza” with Israeli leaders during his visit.

Josep Borrell, the top EU ambassador, left for Lebanon on Friday to hold discussions on “all aspects of the situation in and around Gaza,” which included raising the rising tensions with Israel.

According to a spokesman for the foreign ministry, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s senior diplomat, was also scheduled to visit the area. According to spokesman Sebastian Fischer, she intends to talk about “the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza” as well as tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Fears of a bigger conflict have increased since October 7 due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the nearly daily cross-border gun exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

These worries intensified last week after Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas, was killed in Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, forewarned Israel on Friday that his organization will react “on the battlefield” to Arouri’s passing with urgency.

The Israeli military announced on Friday that further fighter aircraft attacks against Hezbollah targets near the border had taken place.