Thousands of people sheltering in hospitals in Khan Younis are now trapped by Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city, even as a delegation from Hamas travelled to Egypt for the latest round of talks aimed at another ceasefire and hostage-release deal.
The Israeli army said on Wednesday that it had “encircled” the southern city of Khan Younis after two days of heavy fighting, in what Israeli officials have described as the last large ground assault in the three-month-old war before a shift to “lower intensity” operations aimed at eradicating the Palestinian militant group.
By Wednesday morning, fierce battles had reached the gates of Khan Younis’s three main hospitals – al-Aqsa, Nasser and al-Amal – making it difficult for civilians to flee, according to Ocha, the UN humanitarian agency.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Thousands of people sheltering in hospitals in Khan Younis are now trapped by Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city, even as a delegation from Hamas travelled to Egypt for the latest round of talks aimed at another ceasefire and hostage-release deal.
By Wednesday morning, fierce battles had reached the gates of Khan Younis’s three main hospitals – al-Aqsa, Nasser and al-Amal – making it difficult for civilians to flee, according to Ocha, the UN humanitarian agency.
In a video published by ITV News, a man the reporter had just interviewed, one of a group of five with a white flag, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers despite holding his hands above his head.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a comment that it “categorically denies any existence of ‘field executions’” and says Hamas using Gaza’s population as human shields is to blame for the operation’s devastating civilian death toll.
During November’s week-long ceasefire, 110 hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons, but multiple rounds of US, Egypt and Qatar-led negotiations, also focused on facilitating aid into Gaza, have since failed.
Joe Biden has expended vast amounts of international and domestic political capital in defending Israel’s war effort, despite global outcry over the conflict’s devastating humanitarian toll.
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