‘Massacres throughout the night’: Fighting rages in battleground Gaza city

• Intense
  fighting continued in Khan Yunis, Gaza, with the Israeli army targeting the
  Palestinian militant group Hamas.
• The UN’s
  International Court of Justice ruled Friday that Israel must prevent potential
  acts of genocide in the conflict but did not call for a ceasefire.
• Tensions
  between Israel and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) escalated,
  leading to the suspension of funding by key donor countries.

Intense
fighting raged Saturday in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis, the main theatre of
conflict where the Israeli army is targeting the Palestinian Islamist militant
group Hamas.

The
unabated hostilities came a day after the UN’s International Court of Justice
in The Hague ruled that Israel must prevent possible acts of genocide in the
conflict but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.

Tensions
rose between Israel and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after Israel
charged that several UNRWA staff were involved in the Hamas attacks of 7
October, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding.

Foreign
Minister Israel Katz said Saturday that Israel wants to ensure the UN agency,
with tens of thousands of staff in Gaza, “will not be a part of the day
after” the bloodiest ever Gaza war.

Alarm has
grown over the plight of civilians in Khan Yunis, the southern hometown of
Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the suspected mastermind of the 7 October
attacks.

Witnesses
reported more fierce fighting Saturday in the city, where the health ministry
of the Hamas-run territory said, “135 martyrs arrived at hospitals due to
massacres throughout the night”.

The Hamas
government’s press office reported “massive tank bombardment since the
morning” targeting a refugee camp and the Nasser hospital.

Gaza civil
defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said tens of thousands, including children,
endured a night of incessant and cold rain.

The harsh
weather threatened to cause the “spread of contagious diseases” and
made the “humanitarian crisis worse for the two million displaced across
the strip”, he said.

Suhaila
Asfur, a displaced woman, told AFP her family was unable to sleep because of
the heavy rain and said: “I don’t know what we will do tonight and where
we will sleep”.

UN court ruling

Issuing a
highly anticipated ruling on Friday, the UN’s top court said Israel must
prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the narrow strip
of land, which has been under relentless bombardment and siege for almost four
months.

Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the case as “outrageous”,
while Gaza’s Hamas rulers hailed the ruling, saying it “contributes to
isolating Israel and exposing its crimes in Gaza”.

The
decision was based on an urgent application brought by South Africa, long a
supporter of the Palestinian cause, but a broader judgment on whether genocide
has been committed could take years.

“This
is the first time the world has told Israel that it is out of line,” said
Maha Yasin, a 42-year-old displaced Gaza woman.

“What
Israel did to us in Gaza for four months has never happened in history.”

READ | SA vs Israel: Nations call for compliance with ICJ order, focus shifts to Security Council

Israel’s
military campaign began soon after Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October attacks that
resulted in about 1 140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP
tally of official Israeli figures.

Militants
also seized about 250 hostages and Israel says around 132 of them remain in
Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead captives.

Israel has
vowed to crush Hamas, and Gaza’s health ministry says the Israeli military
offensive has killed at least 26 257 people, about 70 percent of them women and
children.

The army
says at least 220 soldiers have been killed since Israel launched its Gaza
ground operations.

‘No healthcare
system’

With a
humanitarian crisis growing, the UN says most of the estimated 1.7 million
Palestinians displaced by the war are crowded into Rafah on the southern border
with Egypt.

At Khan
Yunis’s Nasser Hospital, the largest in the besieged city, Doctors Without
Borders (MSF) said surgical capacity was “virtually non-existent”.

The charity
said medical services at the hospital had “collapsed” and the few
staff who remained “must contend with very low supplies that are
insufficient to handle mass casualty events”.

World
Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 350 patients and 5 000
displaced people remained at the hospital as fighting continued nearby.

The
Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli tanks targeted the Al-Amal
hospital, another of the few remaining medical facilities in Khan Yunis, and
that it was “under siege with heavy gunfire”.

MSF said:

There were
300 to 500 patients trapped at the Nasser hospital with “war-related
injuries such as open wounds, lacerations from explosions, fractures and
burns”.

The Israeli
military accuses Hamas of operating from tunnels under hospitals in Gaza and of
using the medical facilities as command centres.

UN sacks staff

Meirav
Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, accused the WHO this
week of collusion with Hamas by ignoring Israeli evidence of Hamas’s
“military use” of Gaza hospitals.

Tedros
rejected the accusation, saying it could “endanger our staff who are
risking their lives to serve the vulnerable”.

Relations
between Israel and UNRWA soured further after the UN body said tanks had
shelled one of its shelters in Khan Yunis on Wednesday, killing 13 people.

UNRWA said
on Friday it had sacked several employees accused by Israel of involvement in
the 7 October attack.

The
allegations have prompted the United States, Canada, Australia and Italy to
suspend funding to the agency.

FOLLOW IT LIVE | DEVELOPING: Several countries cut UNRWA funding after Israel alleges 7 October involvement

Israel said
Saturday it would seek to stop UNRWA from operating in Gaza after the war.
Hamas urged the UN and international organisations “not to cave in to the
threats” from Israel.

Diplomatic
efforts have sought scaled-up aid deliveries for Gaza and a truce, after a
week-long cessation of hostilities in November saw Hamas release dozens of
hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

CIA chief
William Burns is to meet with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts, as well as
Qatar’s prime minister, in the coming days in Paris to seek a ceasefire, a
security source told AFP.

The UN
Security Council will meet to discuss the ICJ’s ruling on Wednesday.