Wednesday saw intense ground battle between Israeli forces and Hamas terrorists in Gaza as the Israelis broke through the damaged Palestinian enclave and arrived in the center of the southern city of Khan Younis.
Moreover, in one of the most intense battles in the two months since the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict, Israeli jets barraged targets.
Palestinian medical professionals said that supplies were running low and that hospitals were bursting at the seams with civilian casualties, many of them women and children. There were fewer and fewer secure places for the hundreds of thousands of individuals who had been uprooted from their homes.
To destroy Hamas, Israeli forces and tanks have mostly taken control of the northern portion of the Gaza Strip and have now advanced to the southern portion. When a truce broke last week, they unleashed a wave of violence that surrounded Khan Younis.
Israel said on Wednesday that its forces were engaged in intense combat and that they had hit hundreds of targets within the enclave, including a terrorist cell close to a northern school.
Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas, also said that its militants were involved in combat with Israeli soldiers.
On Tuesday, 24 military vehicles were damaged and eight Israeli troops were reported killed or injured by Hamas. Israel said that since the ground assault started five weeks ago, 84 of its troops had died.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said that hundreds of patients at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza require emergency care due to severely low levels of fuel and medical supplies.
Since December 1, 150 to 200 war-wounded patients on average have been admitted to the hospital every day, according to Marie-Aure Perreault Revial, the emergency coordinator for MSF.
"There are 700 patients admitted in the hospital now, with new patients arriving all the time," she stated.
Israel has been publishing an internet map to inform Gazans of where areas of the enclave should flee to prevent assaults ever since the truce broke down. On Monday, the eastern part of Khan Younis was demarcated, and many of its inhabitants fled on foot.
However, Gazans claim that there is nowhere safe to go because Israel is still bombing the places where it is ordering Palestinians to go, and the few remaining communities and shelters are already overrun.
Israel investigates Lebanon strike
In an apparent reference to Israeli shelling that left a Lebanese soldier dead and three others wounded the day before, the Israeli army stated on Wednesday that it was investigating a strike that injured Lebanese forces in south Lebanon.
"The strike did not target the Lebanese Armed Forces. The event has been regretted by the IDF. The Israeli military released a statement saying, "The incident is under review."
Since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian organization Hamas on October 7, Israel and the highly armed Lebanese militia Hezbollah have been exchanging gunfire across the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The soldier, a sergeant, was killed on Tuesday when Israel shelled an army post in Lebanon, according to the army.
From a "known launch area and observation point" used by Hezbollah, the Israeli army said that its forces had engaged in "self-defense to eliminate an imminent threat that had been identified from Lebanon".
