GAZA: Israeli forces carried out new raids in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the U.S. Congress.
The latest Israeli attacks destroyed homes in towns east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza and thousands of people were forced to head west to seek shelter, residents said.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received distress calls from residents trapped in their homes in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis, but were unable to reach the town.
Medics later said two Palestinians had been killed in an airstrike on Bani Suhaila, where the armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas said fighters had detonated a bomb against an Israeli army personnel carrier.
Israel's military, which is trying to eradicate Hamas movement after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said it had been operating in areas from which fighters had been able to fire rockets into Israel and attack Israeli troops.
Gaza health officials said Israeli military strikes in the past 24 hours had killed at least 55 people, the latest casualties in a war that health authorities in the enclave say has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
Residents said they had been ordered to head west towards a designated humanitarian area, but that the area was now unsafe. The Israeli military issued the evacuation orders on social media, and some residents received orders to leave by phone.
Israeli forces also launched out airstrikes on several areas of central and northern Gaza, including one on Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza which health officials said killed nine people.
Some Palestinians who gathered at a hospital in Khan Younis before funerals criticised the United States, Israel's most important international ally, for welcoming Netanyahu.
He was due to address Congress and to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would meet Netanyahu in Florida on Friday. "The United States is a main partner in what is happening in Gaza. We are being killed because of the United States. We are being slaughtered by American planes, American ships, American tanks, and American troops," said Kazem Abu Taha, a displaced resident from Rafah.
Israel has rejected accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against Palestinians. It has reacted angrily to a decision by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant against Netanyahu. — Reuters
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