The Temporary Truce In Gaza Has Collapsed, With Israel Killing Nearly 200 Palestinians With Airstrikes
Israeli warplanes pounded Khan Younis and Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, which Israel had previously said was a safe area.
The temporary pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas collapsed on Friday Dec. 1, with Israel resuming its airstrikes in Gaza and killing nearly 200 Palestinians within two days.
The weeklong temporary pause expired in the early hours of Friday, with Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the terms of the temporary truce.
Qatar, which mediated the pause with Egypt, seemed to single out Israel, saying “the continued bombing of the Gaza Strip in the first hours after the end of the pause complicates mediation efforts and exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe.”
It said that it was working to renew the truce.
Israeli warplanes pounded Khan Younis and Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, which Israel had previously said was a safe area, where tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians are sheltering.
Videos and photos on social media showed massive plumes of smoke rising across the Gaza Strip and devastating scenes of injured civilians and children bidding farewell to their dead parents.
On Friday, Hamas said it had targeted Tel Aviv, but there were no reports of casualties or damages there, according to Reuters.
On Saturday, the militant group fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, but most of them were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
Israel again dropped leaflets in Khan Younis, ordering civilians there to evacuate further towards the south to Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
“You have to evacuate immediately and go to the shelters in the Rafah area. Khan Younis is a dangerous fighting zone. You have been warned,” the leaflets read.
“They told us, ‘Gaza City is a war zone,’ Now it’s Khan Younis. Yesterday they were saying, ‘Evacuate the east of Khan Younis.’ Today they say ‘Evacuate the west,'” Nader Abu Warda, a Palestinian man who fled Jabalia in Gaza City at the start of the war, told Al Jazeera.
“Where are we going now – into the sea? Where are we going to put our children to bed?” he said.
A Hamas official told Al Jazeera on Saturday Dec. 2 that it is no longer open to negotiations on prisoner exchanges and will not resume talks until Israel stops its attacks and frees all of the Palestinians it has jailed in Israeli prisons.
At least 15, 207 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s airstrikes and ground offensive since Oct. 7.
In Israel, the official death toll stands at about 1,200, the number from Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7.
