GAZA: Intense fighting raged on Saturday in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis, the main theatre of conflict where the Israeli army is targeting the Palestinian groups.
The unabated hostilities came a day after the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled Israel must prevent possible acts of genocide in the conflict but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.
Tensions rose between Israel and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after Israel alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in the attack of October 7, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that Israel wants to ensure the UN agency, with tens of thousands of staff in the territory, "will not be a part of the day after" the bloodiest ever Gaza war.
Alarm has grown over the plight of civilians in Khan Yunis. Images showed thousands of civilians, among them women and children, fleeing the city on foot as an Israeli tank loomed behind them.
"They besieged us, so we fled," said Tahani al Najjar, who left Khan Yunis with her daughter. "We call on the UN to intervene, to stop the war. Enough of fear and terror!"
Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the displaced endured incessant cold rain and warned of the "spread of contagious diseases".
The health ministry in Gaza said at least 135 people were killed in Khan Yunis overnight. The government said "massive tank bombardment" targeted a refugee camp in the city and its Nasser hospital.
Issuing a highly anticipated ruling on Friday, the UN's top court said Israel must prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the narrow strip of land which has been under relentless bombardment and siege for almost four months.
The decision was based on an urgent application brought by South Africa, long a supporter of the Palestinian cause, but a broader judgement on whether genocide has been committed could take years.
"This is the first time the world has told Israel that it is out of line," said Maha Yasin, a 42-year-old displaced Gaza woman. "What Israel did to us in Gaza for four months has never happened in history."
With Gaza's humanitarian crisis growing, the UN says most of the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians displaced by the war are crowded into Rafah on the southern border with Egypt.
At Khan Yunis's Nasser hospital, the largest in the besieged city, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said surgical capacity was "virtually non-existent".
The charity said the hospital's services had "collapsed" and the few staff who remained "must contend with very low supplies that are insufficient to handle mass casualty events".
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 350 patients and 5,000 displaced people remained at the hospital as fighting continued nearby.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli tanks targeted the Al Amal hospital, another of the city's few remaining medical facilities, and that it was "under siege with heavy gunfire".
"There is no longer a healthcare system in Gaza," MSF said.
There were 300 to 500 patients trapped at the Nasser hospital with "war-related injuries such as open wounds, lacerations from explosions, fractures and burns".
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