Israel’s military chief says the war on Hamas will grind on for months

Israeli forces pounded central Gaza by land, sea and air on Wednesday, and Palestinian authorities reported dozens more deaths — including 20 in one attack — after Israel's military chief said the war on Hamas would grind on for months.

Reflecting Israeli resolve to wipe out Hamas despite growing international calls for a ceasefire amid a humanitarian crisis, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said fighting would last "many months" and there were no "magic solutions" or "shortcuts."

A Gaza Health Ministry statement said an Israeli airstrike killed 20 Palestinians on Wednesday near the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

A telecommunications outage in much of the enclave hindered efforts to reach Palestinian casualties overnight, but connections were gradually returning online at mid-morning.

In central Gaza's Al-Maghazi district, five Palestinians were killed in one airstrike, medics said, while to the north in Gaza City, health officials said the bodies of seven Palestinians killed overnight arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital.

Elsewhere in central Gaza, residents also reported heavy fighting east and north of Bureij district and in the nearby village of Juhr Ad-Deek, where they said Israeli tanks are stationed.

The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for Bureij and neighbouring parts of central Gaza on Tuesday.

Israel says 3 more soldiers killed

Israel's military on Wednesday reported three more soldiers killed in action in Gaza, bringing total military losses in the enclave since ground operations began on Oct. 20 to 166.

The war erupted after Hamas killed a reported 1,200 people and captured 240 hostages in a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israel's history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded with an assault that has laid much of Hamas-ruled Gaza to waste.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli forces had killed 195 Palestinians and wounded 325 in the past 24 hours, bringing the recorded toll to 21,110 killed and 55,243 wounded in Israeli attacks in the coastal Palestinian territory since Oct. 7.

Nearly all the enclave's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, many several times.

Those displaced living 'primitive life'

One Palestinian family originally from the Shajaiya district of Gaza City has been living in an abandoned home in Rafah, in southern Gaza, for the last month and a half.

Saeed Hajaj, 48, who was displaced by the war along with his wife Iman and their three children, calls it a "primitive life" where the "circumstances are terrible."

"We're sitting and the rain falls on us," he told CBC freelancer Mohamed El Saife on Wednesday.

His cousin, 45-year-old Amjad Hajaj, who has four children, said there's no gas to cook, so instead they have to use firewood.

WATCH | Displaced family in Gaza bakes bread in the rain:

Displaced family in Gaza bakes bread in the rain

14 hours ago

Duration 1:01

In Rafah, a displaced family originally from Shajaiya has been living in an abandoned home for a month and a half amid the Israel-Hamas war. With no cooking gas, they use firewood to bake bread while braving the elements. 'This is our life — we bake under the rain, we eat in the rain,' says Saeed Hajaj, a father of three.

Israeli offensives in the north are crowding most of the population into Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the territory, and Rafah, at the southern edge, as well as a tiny rural area by the southern coastline. Those areas continue to be hit by Israeli strikes, and many fear they, too, could eventually come under ground assault.

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, a huge clock counted the time elapsed since Hamas took the hostages as families kept up their campaign for their loved ones to be freed.

Israel has intensified its raids this week, particularly in a central area just south of the waterway that bisects the narrow coastal strip. The Israeli army told civilians to leave the area, though many said there was no safe place left to go.

WATCH | Children's village brings joy to displaced kids in Gaza:

Children’s village brings joy to displaced kids in Gaza

12 hours ago

Duration 1:19

A group of volunteers have created a kids’ village near the displacement camp in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Children can sing, play and take part in activities designed to help them forget the difficulties of war.

Israel targets Hezbollah

The Israeli military said on Wednesday its warplanes had also targeted Hezbollah military sites and other locations in Lebanon. Huge plumes of smoke were seen on the border.

Security sources said Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, had fired the most rockets and weaponized drones against Israel on Wednesday that it has in a single day since the spate of daily clashes began.

Further highlighting the difficulties in treating the wounded in Gaza, the World Health Organization released footage, taken mostly on Monday and Tuesday at several hospitals, with WHO emergency medical team co-ordinator Sean Casey saying Gaza's health capacity was 20 per cent of what it was 80 days ago.

"We're seeing almost only trauma cases come through the door, and at a scale that's quite difficult to believe," he said. "It's a bloodbath, as we said before; it's carnage."

Casey said nowhere in Gaza was safe.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday the Palestinian Red Crescent Society compound in Khan Younis was hit on Tuesday. It said on X, formerly Twitter, the strike had caused damage and spread panic among those working there and displaced people sheltering in the facility.

U.S. wants more targeted campaign

Israel says it is doing what it can to protect civilians, and blames Hamas for putting them in harm's way by operating among them, which Hamas denies. But even Israel's closest ally, the United States, has said it should do more to reduce civilian deaths from what President Joe Biden has called "indiscriminate bombing."

The Israeli military said it was continuing to strike what it called terror targets in Gaza, at one point using its navy to hit suspects deemed to pose a threat to ground troops.

In the Shajaiya district of Gaza City, an Israeli attack on militant fighters on foot caused secondary explosions, indicating the area was rigged with explosives to attack soldiers, a military statement said.

WATCH | Fighting in Gaza intensifies as humanitarian toll deepens:

Fighting in Gaza intensifies, humanitarian toll deepens

1 day ago

Duration 2:34

As Israel's military operation expands into central Gaza, more than two million people are being squeezed into a shrinking area, where the humanitarian pressure is overwhelming.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, six youths were killed in an Israeli raid into the city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. An Israeli military statement said Israeli forces on a counter-terrorism operation came under attack by militants who threw explosive devices at them. The attackers were struck by an Israeli air force aircraft, it said.

Residents said the youths were neither fighters nor militants.

"It was a sight I could not see, it was something you cannot look at," said Saida Famawi, the mother of one of the youths.

In an interview with Egyptian TV, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel intended to stay in Gaza after the war "but the whole world does not agree with it."

He said the U.S. could "order" Israel to agree that Gaza become part of a future Palestinian state.