UN warns Gaza 'uninhabitable' as war rages on

Israel bombed southern Gaza early Saturday as the UN warned the besieged Palestinian territory has been rendered "uninhabitable" by three months of war.

The fighting, triggered by the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas militants, has sent tensions soaring across the region, and shows no signs of abating as the conflict slides into its fourth month on Sunday.

Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have born the brunt of the violence amid widespread displacement, destruction and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

With much of the territory already reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable".

AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes early Saturday on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

On Israel's northern border, Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it launched on Saturday its "initial response" to the killing of Hamas's deputy chief in Beirut, which a US defence official has told AFP was carried out by Israel.

The Iran-backed group said it had targeted the Israeli military's Meron air control base with 62 missiles, while the Israeli army reported "approximately 40 launches from Lebanon" early Saturday, with sirens blaring in the Galilee region.

The Hamas-allied Lebanese movement has been trading near-daily fire with Israeli forces since early October and said the barrage was a response to Tuesday's killing of Saleh al-Aruri in a strike on a Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital.

The army said it had responded with a strike on a Hezbollah "cell that took part in the launches".

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Friday that Israeli forces were maintaining a "very high state of readiness" along the border with Lebanon following Aruri's killing, which Israel has not claimed.

In Gaza, Hagari said, the army continues "to fight ... in the north, centre and south".

Palestinian man Abu Mohammed, 60, who fled to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, told AFP that as the war nears its fourth month, Gaza's future appeared "dark and gloomy and very difficult".

- Hospital 'overcrowded with displaced' -

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed.

In response, Israel has launched a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,600 people, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society on Friday reported shelling and drone fire in the area around Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis.

It said seven displaced people, including a five-day-old baby, had been killed while sheltering in the compound.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the majority of the Palestinian territory's 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.

In central Gaza, a spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said: "We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe due to the spread of epidemics, with the hospital overcrowded with displaced people."

A UN team on Friday delivered medical supplies to Gaza authorities in Khan Yunis, and WHO coordinator Sean Casey said it was "the first time we've been able to make this delivery in about 10 days."

"Hospitals have been running short on some supplies," he said, adding that medical facilities were "working at two or three times their normal capacity."

The Israeli military on Saturday said its ground and air forces had "killed numerous terrorists ... and destroyed a number of tunnel shaft" in Khan Yunis over the past 24 hours.

Israel says Hamas militants hide in a vast underground network as well as among civilians in schools and hospitals.

The army said that during "a targeted raid" in Gaza City, now a largely devastated urban combat zone, troops had found military vests "concealed... in a medical clinic".

- Diplomatic push -

Top Western diplomats were in the region as part of a fresh push to raise the flow of aid into Gaza and calm rising tensions.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday, where he was due to discuss the Gaza war with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Blinken will also visit several Arab states before heading to Israel and the occupied West Bank next week.

During his visit, Blinken plans to discuss with Israeli leaders "immediate measures to increase substantially humanitarian assistance to Gaza", State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

The EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell was meeting Lebanese leaders on Saturday in Beirut for talks on "all aspects of the situation in and around Gaza".

Germany's top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock, was also due to travel to the region on Sunday, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, meanwhile, slammed remarks by two far-right Israeli ministers seeking to resettle Gazans outside the territory.

"It's not up to Israel to determine the future of Gaza, which is Palestinian land," Colonna told CNN on Friday.

burs-ami/jkb

Israel bombed southern Gaza Saturday as the UN warned the besieged Palestinian territory has been rendered "uninhabitable" by three months of war.

The fighting, triggered by the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas militants, has sent tensions soaring across the region, and shows no signs of abating with the conflict entering its fourth month on Sunday.

Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the violence amid widespread displacement, destruction and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

With swathes of the territory already reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable".

AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes early Saturday on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

On Israel's northern border, Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it launched on Saturday its "initial response" to the killing of Hamas's deputy chief in Beirut, which a US defence official has told AFP was carried out by Israel.

The Iran-backed group said it had targeted the Israeli military's Meron air control base with 62 missiles, while the Israeli army reported "approximately 40 launches from Lebanon" early Saturday, with sirens blaring in the Galilee region.

Contacted by AFP, a military spokesperson confirmed the mountaintop base had been targeted but did not say whether it was damaged. No casualties were reported in Israel.

The Hamas-allied Lebanese movement has been trading near-daily fire with Israeli forces since early October and said the barrage was a response to Tuesday's killing of Saleh al-Aruri in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

The army said it had struck Hezbollah "military sites" in response.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Friday that Israeli forces were maintaining a "very high state of readiness" along the border with Lebanon following Aruri's killing, which Israel has not claimed.

In Gaza, Hagari said, the army continues "to fight ... in the north, centre and south".

Palestinian man Abu Mohammed, 60, who fled to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, told AFP that as the war nears its fourth month, Gaza's future appeared "dark and gloomy and very difficult".

- 'More than 20' deaths in family -

The war began with Hamas's unprecedented attack which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed.

In response, Israel has launched a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it had recorded more than 120 deaths over the past 24 hours.

Victims of renewed Israeli bombardment were brought Saturday to the European hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered.

One of them, Mohamed Awad, wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy.

He counted the deaths in his family. "My brother, his wife, his children, his relatives and the brothers of his wife -- there are more than 20 martyrs," Awad, a journalist, told AFP.

Another Palestinian journalist, Akram El-Shafei, has died at the hospital from wounds sustained in Gaza City in November, making him "the 117th journalist... killed by the Israeli occupation during this crazy war", according to Asser Yassin of the Palestinian Media Forum.

Yassin said Israel "directly targets journalist" but that it "only increases our determination to... convey the suffering and pain" to the world.

Israeli officials have rejected allegations that the army deliberately targets members of the press.

Shafei's condition had initially improved, said relative Magda El-Shafei, but he "needed treatment" and there was "nothing" available.

"He's gone," she told AFP.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the majority of the Palestinian territory's 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.

A UN team on Friday delivered medical supplies to Gaza authorities in Khan Yunis, and WHO coordinator Sean Casey said it was "the first time we've been able to make this delivery in about 10 days."

The Israeli military on Saturday said its ground and air forces had "killed numerous terrorists ... and destroyed a number of tunnel shafts" in Khan Yunis over the past 24 hours.

Israel says Hamas militants hide in a vast underground network as well as among civilians in schools and hospitals.

Hamas -- listed as a "terrorist" group by the United States and the European Union -- denies charges of using hospitals as shelters for its fighters.

The army said that during "a targeted raid" in Gaza City, now a largely devastated urban combat zone, troops had found military vests "concealed... in a medical clinic".

- Diplomatic push -

Top Western diplomats were in the region as part of a fresh push to raise the flow of aid into Gaza and calm rising tensions.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday at the start of his fourth regional tour since the war began.

He will also visit several Arab states before heading to Israel and the occupied West Bank next week, and plans to discuss with Israeli leaders "immediate measures" on aid, according to a State Department spokesman.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh called on Blinken to focus his visit on "ending the aggression" and said US support for Israel has enabled "unprecedented massacres and war crimes against our people in Gaza."

Haniyeh, based in Qatar, added in a video message shared by his office that "the future and stability of our region are closely linked to our Palestinian cause."

Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was also due in the region on Sunday, and the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell was meeting Lebanese leaders on Saturday in Beirut.

burs-ami/it

Israel bombed southern Gaza Saturday as the UN warned the besieged Palestinian territory has been rendered "uninhabitable" by three months of war.

Top Western diplomats were in the region as part of a fresh push to boost the flow of aid into Gaza and address mounting fears of a wider conflict.

The fighting, triggered by the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas militants, has sent tensions soaring across the region, and shows no signs of abating with the conflict entering its fourth month on Sunday.

Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the violence as the scale of the destruction has triggered mass displacement and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

With swathes of the territory already reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable".

AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.

On Israel's northern border, Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it launched its "initial response" to the killing of Hamas's deputy leader in Beirut.

A US defence official has told AFP that Israel carried out the strike, which Israel has not claimed.

The Iran-backed group said it had targeted the Israeli military's Meron air control base with 62 missiles, while the Israeli army reported "approximately 40 launches from Lebanon" early Saturday, and said it struck Hezbollah "military sites" in response.

By the afternoon, warning sirens had sounded seven times in northern Israel, the military said.

Contacted by AFP, a military spokesperson confirmed the mountaintop base had been targeted but did not say whether it was damaged. No casualties were reported in Israel.

The Hamas-allied Lebanese movement has been trading near-daily fire with Israeli forces since early October and said the barrage was a response to Tuesday's killing of Saleh al-Aruri in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

While the two sides exchanged fire on Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, on a visit to Beirut, warned against a wider war.

"It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict," Borrell said.

Before heading to Saudi Arabia, Borrell called for a redoubling of peace efforts.

"Israel has declared a goal to eradicate Hamas. There must be another way to eradicate Hamas that doesn't... create so many people getting killed," he said.

In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, men clambered carefully around the concrete ruins and twisted rebar where Mohammad al-Attar's house stood before rockets that he blamed on Israel destroyed it.

"There was no prior warning or anything," Attar said, his hands stained grey from the debris. "There's still the corpse of a little girl" underneath.

- 'More than 20' deaths in family -

The war began with Hamas's unprecedented attack which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed.

In response, Israel is carrying out a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it had recorded more than 120 deaths over the past 24 hours.

Victims of renewed Israeli bombardment were brought to the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered.

One of them, Mohamed Awad, wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy and counted the deaths in his family.

"My brother, his wife, his children, his relatives and the brothers of his wife -- there are more than 20 martyrs," Awad, a journalist, told AFP.

Another Palestinian journalist, Akram El-Shafei, died at the hospital from wounds sustained in Gaza City in November, making him "the 117th journalist... killed by the Israeli occupation during this crazy war", Asser Yassin of the Palestinian Media Forum said.

Yassin charged that Israel "targets journalists" but that "only increases our determination to... convey the suffering and pain" to the world.

Israeli officials have repeatedly denied that the army deliberately targets those working for the media.

Shafei's condition had initially improved, said relative Magda El-Shafei, but he "needed treatment" and there was "nothing" available.

"He's gone," she told AFP.

The World Health Organization says the majority of Gaza's 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.

- Diplomatic push -

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on the first leg a tour that will take him to Greece and several Arab states ahead of talks in Israel and the occupied West Bank next week.

A senior US administration official said Blinken would press Israel to increase aid to Palestinians and move to a combat phase that allows the displaced to start returning home.

Much of the discussions with Arab leaders will focus on containing the violence and looking at how Gaza can be governed once the fighting ends, said the US official, whose country is Israel's biggest political and military backer.

in a video message shared by his office, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said that "the future and stability of our region are closely linked to our Palestinian cause."

The secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee, Hussein al-Sheikh, said Gaza's future "is determined by the Palestinian people, not Israel."

He was responding to Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant's release on Thursday of a draft plan for Gaza's post-war governance that spoke of Palestinian "civil committees" taking gradual control, while Israel would "reserve its operational freedom of action" throughout the territory.