KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip early Friday, hitting areas in the south where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and it began evacuating a sizable town near the country’s border with Lebanon in a sign that a potential ground invasion of Gaza could trigger regional turmoil.
Palestinians reported heavy airstrikes in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, and ambulances carrying men, women and children streamed into the town’s Nasser Hospital, Gaza’s second largest, which is already overflowing with patients and people seeking shelter. The Israeli military said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza linked to the territory’s Hamas rulers, including a tunnel and arms depots.
Evacuation
Israel has evacuated its own communities near Gaza and Lebanon, putting residents up in hotels elsewhere in the country in a state-funded program. On Friday, the Defense Ministry announced evacuation plans for Kiryat Shmona, a town of more than 20,000 residents near the Lebanese border.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which has a massive arsenal of long-range rockets, has traded fire with Israel along the border on a near-daily basis and hinted it might join the war if Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas. Israel’s arch-foe Iran supports both armed groups.
No timetable
On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered ground troops to prepare to see Gaza “from the inside,” hinting at a ground offensive aimed at crushing Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers nearly two weeks after their bloody incursion into Israel. Officials have given no timetable for such an operation.
Over a million people have been displaced in Gaza, with many heeding Israel’s orders to evacuate the northern part of the sealed-off coastal enclave.
Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals are rationing their dwindling medical supplies and fuel for generators, as authorities worked out logistics for a desperately needed aid delivery from Egypt that has yet to enter. Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza performed surgeries by the light of mobile phones and used vinegar to treat infected wounds.
Fragile
The deal to get aid into Gaza by way of Rafah, the territory’s only crossing not controlled by Israel, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians and that it would “thwart” any diversions by Hamas.
More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, but work has not yet begun on repairing a road on the Gaza side that was damaged by airstrikes.
The violence in Gaza has also sparked protests across the region, including in Arab countries allied with the U.S. Those demonstrations could flare anew on Friday following weekly Muslim prayers.
U.S. support
In an address from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Joe Biden again pledged unwavering support for Israel’s security, while saying the world “can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians” in Gaza.
Speaking hours after returning to Washington from an urgent visit to Israel, Biden linked the current war in Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin “both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”
Biden said he was sending an “urgent budget request” to Congress on Friday, to cover emergency military aid to both Israel and Ukraine.
Intel
Meanwhile, an unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment delivered to Congress estimated casualties in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital this week on the “low end” of 100 to 300 deaths. The death toll “still reflects a staggering loss of life,” said the report, seen by The Associated Press. It said intelligence officials were still assessing the evidence and their casualty estimate may evolve.
The report echoed earlier assessments by U.S. officials that the blast at the al-Ahli hospital was not caused by an Israeli airstrike, as the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza initially reported. Israel has presented video, audio and other evidence it says proves the blast was caused by a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.
The AP has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.