CAIRO: Israel announced its worst combat losses for more than a month on Wednesday after an ambush in the ruins of Gaza City, and faced growing diplomatic isolation as civilian deaths mounted and a humanitarian catastrophe worsened.
Intense fighting was under way simultaneously in the north and south of the enclave, a day after the United Nations demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. US President Joe Biden said Israel's "indiscriminate" bombing of civilians was costing international support.
Warplanes again bombed the length of Gaza and aid officials said the arrival of rainy winter weather worsened the conditions for hundreds of thousands of families sleeping rough in makeshift tents. The vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people have already been made homeless.
Israeli forces have besieged the enclave and laid much of it to waste, with more than 18,000 people confirmed killed according to Palestinian health authorities, and many thousands more feared lost in the rubble or beyond the reach of ambulances.
In Rafah, at the southern end of the Strip where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter, the bodies of a family killed in an overnight air strike were being laid out in the rain in bloodied white shrouds, including several small children. One, only the size of a newborn, was wrapped in a pink blanket.
Since a week-long truce collapsed at the start of December, Israeli forces have extended their ground campaign from the northern Gaza Strip into the south with the storming of the main southern city of Khan Younis.
Meanwhile, fighting has only intensified amid the rubble of the north, where Israel had previously claimed its military objectives had been largely met.
Israel reported ten of its soldiers killed in the past 24 hours, including a full colonel commanding a forward base and a lieutenant-colonel commanding a regiment. It was the worst one-day loss since 15 were killed on October 31.
Most of the deaths came in the Shejaiya district of Gaza City in the north, where troops were ambushed trying to rescue another group of soldiers who had attacked fighters in a building, the military said.
In the north, heavy fighting has also taken place in the Jabaliya district, where Gaza health officials say Israeli forces have besieged and stormed a hospital and detained and abused medical staff.
In the south, Israeli forces storming Khan Younis advanced in recent days to city centre. Residents said there was heavy fighting there but no further attempts to advance in the last 24 hours. — Reuters
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