Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, local health workers said, as Israel’s military resumed its bombardments and issued new orders for residents to evacuate combat zones.
The United Nations said a foreign staffer was killed and five other workers were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the site of a UN headquarters in central Gaza City.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, Executive Director of the UN office for Project Services, said: “Israel knew that this was a UN premises, that people were living, staying and working there, it is a compound. It is a very well-known place.”
An explosive device was dropped or fired on the premises, he told a news conference in Brussels.
“This was not an accident,” he said. “What’s happening in Gaza is unconscionable.”
Dr. Raed Hussein, director of emergency and ambulance services at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, called for protection of international organizations including the UN.
“[The Israeli army] bombed a residential area. The [victims] are foreigners who entered the Gaza Strip,” Hussein told CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife on Wednesday.
The Israeli military denied it had struck the UN compound in Deir el-Balah. It said it had hit a Hamas site in northern Gaza where it had detected preparations for firing into Israeli territory but provided no evidence.
The renewed bloodshed followed one of the deadliest days so so far in the Israeli assault on the Palestinian territory, with Israeli airstrikes killing more than 400 people on Tuesday, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel warned the onslaught was “just the beginning.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to resume bombardments has triggered protests in Israel as 59 hostages are still being held in Gaza, with 24 of them believed to be still alive.
A coalition of hostage families and protesters against Netanyahu’s moves against the judiciary and other parts of the security establishment has regrouped and accuses the prime minister of using the war for political ends.
Residents forced to evacuate homes in north, south
On Wednesday, the Israeli army dropped leaflets in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, ordering residents to evacuate their homes, warning they were in “dangerous combat zones.”
“Staying in the shelters or the current tent puts your lives and that of your family members in danger, evacuate immediately,” read a leaflet dropped on Beit Hanoun.
Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he had ordered strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals to secure an extension of the ceasefire until April.
Warning: This video contains graphic images | Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military campaign will continue in Gaza with increasing intensity. The first wave of bombardments from Israel since the collapse of the ceasefire killed at least 400 people and displaced thousands from their homes, Gaza health officials say.
Hamas, which still holds 59 of about 250 hostages Israel says the group seized in its October 7, 2023, cross-border attack, accused Israel of jeopardizing efforts by mediators to negotiate a permanent deal to end the fighting.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday that she told Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar that the situation in Gaza is “unacceptable.”
Meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Jordan’s King Abdullah called for the ceasefire to be restored and for aid flows to resume.
“Israel’s resumption of attacks on Gaza is an extremely dangerous step that adds further devastation to an already dire humanitarian situation,” he said.
Arab plan in jeopardy
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Wednesday called for restraint from all sides ahead of her trip to Lebanon to discuss the conflict.
“The resumption of fighting … jeopardizes the positive efforts of the Arab states, which together want to pursue a peaceful path for Gaza, free from Hamas,” Baerbock said in a statement.
Israel and Western powers do not want the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to play any role in the enclave when the war is over. Israel has vowed to crush Hamas, but the Palestinian militant group remains the dominant force in Gaza.
Arab nations drew up a plan for peace and reconstruction in Gaza after a proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump to resettle Palestinians and turn it into the “Riviera” of the Middle East triggered outrage in the region. However, the plan has not gained traction.
Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza overnight, killing more than 400 people, Palestinian health authorities say, threatening the complete collapse of the two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
In Wednesday’s violence, three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City, while another airstrike left two men dead and wounded six others in Beit Hanoun town in the north, the Gaza health officials said.
Palestinian medics said Israeli tank shelling on the Salahdeen road killed one Palestinian and wounded others, while an Israeli airstrike killed three people in a house in Beit Lahiya town north of the enclave.
Israeli naval vessels also attacked several boats, which Israel said intended to carry out “terrorist” acts by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups. Palestinians said an Israeli drone fired at several fishing boats onshore of Gaza City, setting several of them ablaze.
Hamas officials said they remained keen on concluding the three-phase ceasefire deal as signed.
Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching the truce, which had offered a respite for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents after 17 months of war, which has reduced the enclave to rubble and displaced the majority of its population multiple times.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, shattering Israel’s reputation as invincible in a hostile region.
The subsequent Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 49,000 people, say Palestinian health authorities, and caused a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food, fuel and water.
